Cat and Mouse
by Agent.Q.003
Summary: A mysterious new threat comes to Gotham and tests the limits of Dick and Amelia's friendship. Dick struggles to maintain his moral code, and finds himself wondering if sacrificing his honor is the only way to keep those he loves alive. OC. Follows "Mice Will Play". Happens after the series finale.
1. Prologue

GOTHAM: 5 YEARS PRIOR

Amelia did not know, or care to know, the details of her mother's illegal ventures. It was no secret that Jane was involved in some pretty shady stuff. Judging from the frequent late night visits from men Amelia had seen on the front page of the Gotham City newspaper, it probably was safer that she didn't know.

The men downstairs weren't new, either. She recognized their voices, though she tried to drown them out with the pillow over her head. Amelia never really saw her mother. Jane would go out during the day, then come back at night on a high from some new thing she'd found off the street. Usually she'd head straight to bed, but sometimes she'd come in and wake Amelia up to read her bedtime stories she was too old to care about. Felix would stand in the doorway glaring at her like _she _was the one keeping him awake, when all she really wanted to do was go to sleep.

Felix was off tonight. He and her mother had gotten into a fight, as they did frequently. Not like he would ever do anything to quiet the voices downstairs, anyway.

She was just about asleep when shouts penetrated her pillow earmuffs. The yelling was new. They'd never done that before. She couldn't figure out what they were saying, so she crept out of bed and opened her door just a crack and peered through. No one was upstairs, so she rounded the corner and sat just at the top of the staircase, in the shadows. Her fingers curled around the dark, polished wood to keep herself from jumping as the shouts echoed through the house.

Three men were down in the living room, all of them wearing black ski masks. Her heart raced. What was she doing out here? She should be in bed. Her mother would be furious if she found out she was watching. But, judging by the dazed look on Jane's face as she stared blankly up at the men, she probably didn't even know what was going on.

She was sure it was a scary situation. Or, rather, that she was supposed to be scared. She wasn't. She should be worried. Her palms should be sweating. And she absolutely, most definitely should _not _be smiling.

Amelia had never seen her mother yelled at before. She'd never had the courage to do such a thing.

She was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she hadn't even taken in a word of what these men were actually saying. She'd been in her own world, until they started hitting her. There were three of them. One stood watch at the door, one tore all the books from the shelves like he was looking for something, and the other swatted her around. He hit her and kicked her in the stomach and worse.

She lost all sense of time until one pointed at her, and she realized that she was clinging to the bannister with a vice grip and crying. Had she screamed? She didn't know.

He shot at her. She should hear the bullet buzz by her ear.

Amelia scampered back up the stairs as quickly as possible, whirling around and running into one of the offices down the hall. She slammed shut all the doors as she went, which would hopefully distract him if anything. He shot at her again once he reached the bottom of the stairs, but missed. She could feel the impact somewhere down by her foot. He'd been close this time, too.

She hid under the desk, behind the chair. She peered underneath to stare at the door.

He couldn't come through. He wouldn't.

Her breathing quickened as her heart pounded in her chest. She didn't want to die. Not like this. She was wearing Hello Kitty pajamas, for god's sake. She _couldn't_ die like this. She sniffed, and wiped the tears off her face with the back of her sleeve.

The creaking footsteps approached. She held her breath. She covered her mouth with trembling, sweaty palms just to make sure she wouldn't let out any sort of scream. She wasn't sure whether the moisture running down her face was from sweat or tears.

He opened the door across the hall, and she could hear him moving around in the room, calling her name softly.

How did he know her name? What would she do if he came in, jump out the window? No, it was locked. She'd never get out in time.

She was trapped.

The footsteps returned and she kept her eyes trained on the doorknob. _No, _she prayed. _If there is a god, don't let him come in._

The doorknob started turning.

It turned slowly, and he pushed the door open just a crack before taking a cautious step inward. She caught a glimpse of his wedding band glistening in the dim light cast by the moon through the windows. It was inscribed with something, but she couldn't read it from here.

"Come on," one of the men called from downstairs. "Leave the kid, it's fine. Moretti's not paying us enough to kill kids."

Amelia looked up to where the man's eyes should be, but she couldn't see a thing because of the shadowy mask he wore. No sign on whether he was going to listen to his friend.

After what felt like an eternity he sighed and retreated, shutting the door behind him.

Amelia curled up and eventually fell asleep under the desk.

* * *

><p>"Amelia? Amelia where the hell are you?" She was awoken by Jane's voice, walking down the hall. She scrambled to wipe the crust off her eyes, trying to figure out how she'd ended up in the office. Eventually Jane pushed open the office door, and Amelia remembered. Jane frowned. "What the fuck are you doing sleeping on the floor for? Did you get into my liquor cabinet or something? Because I swear to God if you drank all my nice shit I'm gonna kill you."<p>

Amelia was confused for a second, until she realized that Jane genuinely couldn't remember anything that happened the night before. They'd deliberately avoided hitting her face, so Jane probably just thought that she'd fallen down the stairs or something. She had no idea. Amelia stared at her mother in awe for a moment before snapping out of it and shaking her head. "No, mom. I just… don't worry about it."

"Do you want pancakes? I made pancakes."

Amelia followed her mother down the stairs. "No, mom, I don't want pancakes."

"Why? Trying to watch your weight?" Jane sighed and gave Amelia a once over as she sat down at the breakfast bar. "Because I understand. I can cut you a grapefruit."

She spotted Felix standing over in the dining room and Charfield sitting down at the table. He paid her no attention, and sat typing on his phone. In usual fashion, he left the sound on, so she could hear the click-click-clicking of his every letter reminding her of the fact that _he _and a social life and _she _didn't.

Jerk.

She returned her attention to Jane across from her. She felt sick. "I just not hungry, okay? Jesus." She glanced over at Felix. "Felix, do you want anything? We can make coffee." Not that he needed it. It's not like he was here last night, the one time he was actually needed. What use was he? Why was he even here?

His sharp gaze bore into her. "No," he said.

_Well, then, _she thought. _See if I ever try being nice to _you _again_.

Charfield eventually looked up from his phone and over at her. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he looked back down at his phone again, trying desperately not to laugh.

Amelia realized that she hadn't changed out of her pajamas. Her cheeks burned and her fists clenched. "Say something, Princess. I dare you."

His eyebrows raised. He was so proud of himself. "No, thanks. I think it speaks for itself."

"Fuck." Amelia rolled her eyes. "Out of hundreds of thousands of sperm, _you _were the quickest? What are you, twelve?"

He laughed, but it wasn't genuine. He was glaring at her. "You're one talk. And you know what? At least my birth certificate isn't an apology letter from Trojan."

There were no words. She had no comebacks. Instead, she snarled and flew at him in a rage. Chairs toppled, and she sent him careening back onto the floor. He hadn't even seen it coming.

She had just gotten her fingers into his hair and was bashing his skull into the floor when Felix tore her off of him, lifting her by the back of her shirt and tossing her aside like a ragdoll. He picked Charfield up off the ground and examined the boy's bloody nose, commenting, "You sure let that girl do a number on you. Go get yourself cleaned up."

Amelia had never realized before that Felix glared at Charfield, too. At least she wasn't the only one.

She could practically see the smoke coming out of Jane's ears. Amelia was sure she would have said something—yelled, probably—if the doorbell hadn't rung.

Great. The last thing she needed, another guest to view her wonderful apparel.

There was a police officer at the door. He introduced himself as Officer Johnathan Cooper. He seemed polite enough, at first. Amelia wasn't able to take in much of what he'd said after that. He was overseeing an investigation on her mother's involvement in a wide-spread drug and arms smuggling operation and that he was going to see to it that Amelia was being taken care of, even if that meant taking her away from her mother permanently. He would make it his mission to see Amelia separated from her.

She was sure there were more details than that, but she wasn't focused on his mouth. She was focused on his ring.

She'd seen it before.

She'd seen it last night.

Johnathan Cooper was no honest cop. He was working for Moretti, someone she'd never heard of before. He'd beaten her mother, and he'd tried to kill her. And now he was trying to cover his tracks.

* * *

><p>Amelia flipped through the pages of the newspaper slowly, her eyes straining over the small print. Johnathan Cooper. She was looking for Officer Johnathan Cooper. She'd seen him before last night. She'd recognized his eyes. She just couldn't place them.<p>

There! She let out a gasp of surprise that earned her a glare from the librarian. She leaned close to the page to see the print clearly—she'd foolishly forgotten her glasses at home and the cold air was far too dry to wear contacts in.

"Gotham's Hero, Homeless?"

Her stomach sank as she read the article further. It talked about how Cooper was credited with finding the evidence that resulted in taking down Falcone and helping restore order to the city. The order was only temporary, of course. The police were making it seem like a bigger deal than it was, probably because it was close to elections. Amelia had heard men talking on the bus ride here… There was already someone taking advantage of Falcone's absence. Another Italian who had kept his head low in Falcone's day, they said he was smarter. They said he may have even helped them catch Falcone to get rid of the competition. That his reach spread father than the DA. A killer who had already slaughtered cops and children alike, but no one knew his name. Amelia had no doubt that it was this mysterious Moretti.

Apparently Cooper was close to finding himself out of the job because of a merger. Gotham City Police Department was downsizing, and it didn't even have enough room for its hero.

Or perhaps his heroics were the reason he was leaving, if the man on the bus had been correct. Maybe Moretti didn't trust dirty cops who could be bought, even if he had been the one to hire him in the first place. A man who had proved that his loyalty could be bought certainly had no honor. There was no room for those he couldn't trust in his new regime.

This man was no hero, though. She was sure of it.

Her pulse raced and she slumped back in the chair, running her fingers through her messy curls.

Do_ not_ think about last night.

"Don't do it, Amelia," she whispered to herself, frustrated, as all the images swam in her mind. Her palms started sweating, and for a second she thought she might be sick.

She forced herself back to reality as she put away the newspapers into a neat pile and made her way over to the grouping of computers. She didn't want to think about that. She wouldn't.

_Johnathan Cooper_.

If Amelia was sure of one thing, it was that she sure as hell wasn't going to let this guy get away with it. Especially not after what he'd done to her mother, whether she remembered or not. She would remember enough for the both of them.

Hero status be damned, she would see him burned. For a city full head to toe of costumed thugs, one would think that officers like Cooper wouldn't be able to do shit like this and get away with it. Apparently that was a stupid assumption. If she said anything, it would just be regarded as a silly accusation made by a silly girl who didn't want to be taken away from her addict mother. No one would believe her.

No, if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself. And she would.

She found a website that Cooper had recently created. Because of his impending layoff, he was now hiring himself out in the private security sector. There was a review for his work, from a name she recognized. One of Jane's friends. It said that they were hiring him for an event that hadn't yet occurred, but that they could already tell by his preparation that he was a courteous, professional man.

They were having a party at the end of the month. That must be what they were talking about. Amelia knew through her mother that they had recently acquired one of the world's largest, most precious diamonds, but they haven't made that public knowledge yet. They would wait until after the party, after they were done having over a hundred people at their home, most of whom they barely knew. If it came out before the party, they would have to double the security to ensure its safety.

Instead, they were just hiring a small security team with Cooper at its head. He was solely in charge of this stone's safety.

So, naturally, she was going to steal it right out from under his nose and ensure that he would never see the light of day again. If the law wouldn't work for her, she would just have to make do without it.

* * *

><p>AN: Hello, everyone! Thanks for sticking with me for so long, and sorry for the break! I wanted to make sure everything was thought out to give everyone the best story possible. This is a bit of Amelia's backstory. I may upload a part II if there's interest, but I already have Chapter 1 done, so I'm going to go ahead and start the story. Chapter 1 starts with Dick and is a little dark, but it won't stay that way for too long.

I also have a Tim Drake fic planned, which I'll start later on in this story since the two run side-by-side. It'll have a much lighter feel than this series overall, and will probably have a sequel eventually. So, some little things to look forward to


	2. Chapter 1

Although Dick had gotten back from Wally's funeral hours ago, he still hadn't changed out of his black suit. Instead he'd gotten back to his apartment, sat down on the couch with a bottle of bourbon he'd stolen from Bruce, and watched the white noise on the television. He'd just started his job and couldn't yet afford cable. It was fine, though. The static was almost soothing.

His tie started to feel like it was strangling him. He hastily untied it with his free hand and flung it off into the dark corridor. That was another thing he needed, a lamp. For the past week he had been relying on sunlight and the dim lighting unit above the stove.

You really couldn't afford much on a police officer's salary.

At some point in the night it had started to pour. Dick didn't really know what time it was, but he did know that he'd been staring at the static for quite some time now. His eyes hurt. He wasn't sure if the television screen was black with white dots, or white with black. He'd been trying to figure that out for at least an hour.

He brought the bottle to his lips again. It almost tasted sweet. He could no longer feel the burn of the alcoholic aftertaste.

Someone started knocking on the door and he almost didn't answer, but then it occurred to him that he didn't really remember anything about the past few hours. For all he knew, he could have ordered a pizza. He could go for some pizza.

He put the bottle down on a moving box he had been using as an end table and looked through the peep-hole. Unfortunately, there was no delivery man. Instead, Amelia stood in the hallway, looking like someone had just dumped a bucket of water over her head.

He opened the door and gazed at her for a moment, puzzled. Her eyes were red and puffy. He remembered her telling him a couple nights ago that she had planned to try to find Selina, who had disappeared around seven months ago after Lex realized Amelia had been spying on him. Amelia had recently gotten some leads and had been checking them out. Obviously it hadn't turned out well, but he knew she wouldn't want to talk about it.

Amelia didn't talk about bad things. She swept them under the rug and pretended they didn't exist. He sighed. "You're wet."

His stare dropped from her eyes down to the rest of her body, where her clothes suctioned tightly as they dripped onto the hardwood.

"You're drunk," she responded, letting herself in. She looked around for a moment and, spotting the half-empty bottle of bourbon, made her way over to the living room.

His head spun. "Maybe a little." He leaned up against the kitchen counter and watched her pace back and forth across the room, shoes squelching and hair _drip drip dripping _on the floor. "Do you want some dry clothes?"

Amelia stopped, torn away from her trance. "No," she said, looking down at the floor. She touched her forehead. "I shouldn't really stay long."

He opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't really know what. He didn't know what to talk about. She didn't _like _talking about things like Selina, or Wally. But that was all _he _could think about.

She watched his face and must have realized what he was thinking. "Just say it," she murmured with a grimace.

"Bruce never found her. And believe me; if you learn anything working for him for as long as I have, it's that if Bruce Wayne can't find it, it doesn't exist. She's dead, Amelia. Don't do this to yourself. Stop looking."

She closed her eyes and her lip quivered. He started wondering if he could have found a way to say that more tactfully. "Someone left me that suit," she pleaded to him, as if he could save her mentor's life. "If it wasn't her, who was it?" She watched him for a moment before shaking her head. "No, don't worry about that. I'll figure something out."

She thought he would be upset by the mention of the world he'd given up. He was, a little, but mostly he didn't care. He liked to pretend it didn't exist. He understood what Wally must have liked so much about retirement. It was far more relaxing not knowing how many people's lives were in need of saving on a daily basis. He was relieved he no longer had to choose who to save.

He should have gone out to California more. He should have visited them more.

Artemis hadn't shown up to the funeral. It was no surprise. He was thankful for that, though. It was bad enough having to confront his parents, watching his mom cry.

Dick must have zoned out for longer than he had thought, because when he snapped back to reality Amelia was staring at him like he was a broken toy.

She thought he was so great. Heroic, even. She had this vision of him in her head that was so much more than what he could actually live up to. It had taken him a while to realize it. She had done the stupidest things imaginable just to keep _him_ safe, on some sick notion that he was somehow better than she was. It was infuriating because there was no way he could ever live up to what she expected from him. How dare she expect the world from him, when she thought so low of herself! She had to realize it was ridiculous! Then, the second he can't live up to her expectations, the very moment he breaks, she looks like him like a stupid, dumb toy.

Maybe he was broken. Maybe he couldn't perform adequately. Maybe that's why so many people had died under his watch.

It wasn't like he hadn't been struggling to keep his head above water for months before Wally had died. Where had she been, then? Out looking for Selina, for a dead woman. When _he _had been sitting there right in front of her drowning.

But, right, she didn't like to talk about bad things. He had to pretend everything was okay. After all, he wouldn't want to upset her.

He approached her and stared down at her for a moment. He didn't know why she made him so angry. She'd never made him angry before. She was a clever, witty, charming, beautiful woman. Dick liked clever, witty, charming, beautiful women. They were his favorite kind of women.

Why, then, was he so torn between his simultaneous desires to scream at her or kiss her?

He was breathing heavily and he realized he could smell the bit of her perfume that hadn't washed off with the rain. He was standing so close that her cold body stole the heat from his, leaving him with chills that ran down his spine.

She looked up at him, confused and expecting him to say something. She leaned in closer, drawn to his heat. She shivered against him. She had probably refused the dry clothes out of pride and the wish to not be an inconvenience, not because she wasn't freezing. The moron was going to catch a cold because she wouldn't even burden him with walking two steps down the hall into his bedroom.

He placed his hand behind her neck and captured her lips with his. She obviously hadn't been expecting it and inhaled a small gasp before winding her fingers into his hair. Her lips were like ice against his skin.

His other arm moved slowly down her side, over the wet fabric that clung to her. It was like she was standing naked in front of him, even though she was dressed like she, too, had just gone to a funeral. His hand rounded her backside before picking her up and carrying her over to the kitchen counter.

Their lips parted only for a moment, when he hastily tossed his blazer off onto the floor somewhere, probably next to his tie.

He pulled back a fistful of her dripping hair so he could kiss her neck. She let out a soft, breathy sigh before pulling away from his touch. "Dick, stop."

Dick unwound his fingers from her hair and took a step back. "What's wrong?"

She stared at him for a moment, her jaw hanging low. "What's wrong?" She shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, in case you forgot, your best friend was just buried. And you're mad at me! I'm not doing this with you."

"I'm not mad at you."

"Yes, you are. I keep hoping you'll get over it. It's not like I haven't done anything for you that you haven't already done for me without _my _consent."

"Why are we even talking about this?" Dick frowned, throwing his arms up in the air. "If this isn't what you came for, then I'm not sure why you're still here."

She couldn't look any more offended if she tried. "You think I came all the way to Bludhaven for a pathetic lay?"

"I've received a lot of feedback in that area and I can assure you _pathetic _was never on that particular list of adjectives."

Her fists clenched and unclenched. He wondered briefly if he was about to be punched. He doubted he could even take her, if it came to it. She'd been training with Babs, he'd been training with the city cops. "I came here because whether you like it or not, you're my friend and I needed you," she growled. "And I'm pretty sure you need me too because you sure as hell haven't talked to Tim or Babs lately."

"My relationship with my friends is none of your business." Dick almost couldn't believe what she was saying. "Get out."

She hopped off the counter and re-fastened a few of the buttons that had come loose on her blouse. "Make me."

He couldn't. He was drunk and out of shape. Even if he wasn't, it wasn't like he could just hit her. And she knew it.

"I'm your friend, too. Stop trying to push me away. Talk to me."

He stared at her, standing in the middle of his kitchen like a stubborn child, for only a moment before going into his bedroom and finding a pair of warm clothes she could wear. He tossed them down onto the couch and pointed. "Put these on, then we can talk."

She glanced at them longingly, hugging herself and shifting her weight to keep warm. After a long moment of silence she nodded, gathered the clothing, and headed down the hall to change.

Dick breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his spot on the couch. He was soon joined by Amelia, who sat beside him and stared at the white noise on the television, equally entranced.

"I'm scared for you, Dick," she said softly. "I can't concentrate when I'm scared for you."

He laughed. "I think I can handle any of the lowlifes they throw rookies at, I'm not that out of shape."

"That's not what I meant and you know it." She took the bottle from his grip; he hadn't even remembered grabbing it. It was almost empty. She let out a deep, shaking breath. "I've controlled every variable imaginable to ensure the safety of everyone I love. But I can't protect you from yourself, and that's terrifying."

Dick swallowed, and shifted in his seat. He rubbed the tension in the back of his neck and stared down at the threads on the couch, because her wide grey eyes staring at him made his head spin.

"I know this is hard to talk about, and when I left you Dr. Carter's contact information I really didn't mean any insult by it. I wasn't there when you needed me to be, so you don't want to talk to me. I get it. But she's really helped me, and I think she can help you, too." She paused and thought for a moment, then added, "Plus, she's signed so many confidentiality agreements that she probably feels uncomfortable _thinking _about clients outside work."

She sure had a silver tongue. Then again, with the face she was putting on, she could have been asking him to tap dance naked in public and he would have done it in a heartbeat. Was this the same sort of charm and manipulation she'd pulled on James for years? It hadn't taken her but weeks to have him head over heels.

Would he ever be able to look at her and _not _question whether she was being genuine? She always knew the right formula, the perfect balance of personal anecdotes, pleading, and feminine charm. Or maybe that was just her, the way she naturally was. Maybe it wasn't her words that always made him bend to her every whim, but her. Maybe he was just looking for a reason to run.

He cleared his throat, dismissing the thoughts from his mind. He would assume she was full of shit until she gave him a reason to believe it.

"Actually, I've already been to seen her. She gave me this, um… prescription." He glanced over at her. Her eyes were welled up with tears, but her mouth was set into a smile that vaguely resembled a grimace. His lips tugged into a frown. "What?"

She broke his stare when she returned her gaze to the television screen. "We're really fucked up people, Grayson. Are they working?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. It was weird being able to talk like this to anyone. He'd never anticipated it. He was in the habit of rehearsing things to say in his head for every situation imaginable. He had no material prepared on this matter. "It's still hard, like today, but for the most part, yes. You?"

"No," she said, finishing off the bottle that still lay in her hands. "Not yet." She grimaced and tapped her temple with her fingertip. "There are some benefits in being fucked up that I still have need of."

* * *

><p>"Is that," Babs rubbed her eyes as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing, "what I think it is?"<p>

Amelia swung the key ring around a slender, gloved finger. "I mean, only if you think it's the Batmobile."

As usual, Babs frowned. "Does Bruce know you took it?" She always had to find something wrong, always looking for reasons to label Amelia the perpetual miscreant.

Everyone's a critic.

Amelia had been helping Babs track down a few of the Arkham inmates she'd let loose in return for Bruce's help finding Selina, though Amelia suspected that Bruce would have looked on his own. He had seemed far too eager to make that deal.

Unfortunately, the searches had resulted in nothing. Dick was right, she should stop looking. That didn't mean Amelia would stop helping Babs, though. She was starting to grow fond of the overly critical girl. She liked to think she brought a little fun and spontaneity to Babs' probably otherwise dull and scheduled life.

She shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Babs already had her phone out, and Amelia only had to guess who was on the other line.

"Come on," she groaned. "You said yourself that you had always wanted to use it."

She glanced around like they were being spied on, cupped her hand over the receiving end of the phone, and hissed, "I didn't mean _steal _it! You cannot pin this on me."

Amelia looked down at her watch with a yawn. "I have some timely leads on Ivy and Quinn. We may already be too late. If only we had oh, I don't know, a car to get us there."

"Nice try."

"I'll let you drive."

Babs clenched her jaw and let out a hum of frustration. Her brows furrowed, and Amelia could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears. She was fighting with every fabric of her being to not give in until she eventually hung up the phone. "Fine," she said, finally descending the steps from the headquarters they were rebuilding within Mount Justice. It wasn't exactly secret anymore, so Amelia had a feeling they were actually just prettying up everything and making sure nothing important had been left in the wreckage. She couldn't imagine that they would ever use it as a base of operations again. "But when Bruce finds out, I'm telling him you made me."

Amelia grinned and tossed her the keys, sliding over to the passenger's side. "I wouldn't have it any other way, Princess."

"So, where are we headed?" Babs asked. She started the car, and the engine roared to life. She tried to keep a straight face, but it was easy to see the smile.

"You know Gotham General's Psych satellite center they abandoned when they ran out of funds? There. Apparently Quinn worked there briefly, she knows her way around."

Babs groaned. "Of course she does."

* * *

><p>They'd been sitting there for hours, in the shadows, waiting. Babs had been scolding Amelia endlessly. Amelia had found out about some deal that was supposed to be happening here, something big. Lots of weapons of some sort, the details beyond that weren't certain. They didn't really matter. All Ivy and Quinn needed was to come out of hiding so they could be caught.<p>

It was supposed to have happened hours ago. In the meantime, Babs had gotten no less than four angry calls from Bruce inquiring as to the whereabouts of his precious vehicle.

Amelia was starting to worry. Like they had found out someone was onto them.

Or like it was a trap.

Babs' phone rang again and Amelia almost snapped at her for answering it until she realized that it was Dick on the other end. She put it on speaker. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for hours, Amelia." He sounded breathless.

Amelia shrugged. "You know I don't answer my phone when I'm out. What's up?"

She could hear him wrestling with his keys, probably trying to get back into his apartment. "I just got back from a date."

"Oh, yeah?" Babs asked, raising her eyebrows and glancing over at Amelia with look that said she was mildly impressed. If Grayson was getting back into the dating game, then he was definitely feeling better than he had been lately. Much more like himself. "How'd that go?"

"She tied me up and beat the shit out of me."

Amelia choked. "I mean, if that's what you're into."

"I could have gone without those mental images," Babs added with a grimace.

"No! Uh, I mean, I'm not…" He was flustered. "She tried to rob me," he blurted. "I knew letting you two sign me up on that online site wasn't a good idea. See if I ever take advice from you again."

"It's not my fault you've been out of the real world for so long that you mistake OkCupid and Craigslist prostitution ads. She was probably just mad because you didn't pay her."

"It was all her idea. I told you not to do it, remember? You two have the stupidest ideas, I— we have to go." Barbara froze and immediately hung up the phone. "What's that?" she asked, suddenly sitting up straight and pointing toward a movement in the shadows. A single hooded figure emerged, a male by the looks of it. Wearing entirely black.

Certainly _not _Ivy or Quinn. Amelia groaned. "No one we're interested in. What, are they hiring people to do their dirty work now?"

Babs frowned. "Maybe they knew we were coming?"

"No…" Amelia strained to see in the darkness. She couldn't see anything, just that man standing there, still as a statue.

Then she blinked, and everything was chaos. The man was surrounded. The trap had been for him, not for them. He turned around in a sharp movement and drew a weapon from somewhere under his coat. When he did so, his hood fell to reveal a head full of golden hair. Amelia's heart sank.

"Is that…?" Babs asked, bewildered. "What?"

In one quick movement, Amelia grabbed Babs sharply by the ears on her cowl and bashed her head into the window just hard enough to daze her. "Sorry," she said with a grimace, and handcuffed her hands together behind the seat. "This is something I have to handle on my own."

Amelia was able to sneak out of the car and into the shadows quietly enough to not get caught. She snuck up behind the nearest attacker and slammed her elbow down into the back of his shoulder, causing him to loosen his grip on the gun he was holding just enough. She kicked his feet out from underneath him, ripped the gun from his grasp, and drove it into his head as he fell with enough force to render him unconscious.

There were two men in her periphery. She shot them both in the leg and disarmed them. She scanned the area, only to find the ground littered with men who were either dead or incapacitated.

Across from her stood a confused-looking, heavily breathing, James Moretti.

He frowned. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

Her heart skipped a beat. She hadn't heard his voice in so long. She hadn't seen him at all, actually. She felt dizzy, and made sure her voice distorter was on. It was placed differently in the Catwoman costume than it had been in her old suit. "If I divulged that sort of information on a whim it would defeat the purpose of the mask, don't you think? And it's quite nice, I think I'll keep it." She backed away from him slowly, not overly eager to get within his grasp.

He wasn't impressed. "How the fuck did you know we were here?"

Amelia could imagine a million ways this situation could spiral out of hand. She placed the gun on the ground, raising her hands in surrender. "Relax, kid. I'm just here to help, and now I'll be on my way."

Surely enough, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. "I don't think so."

How had she not seen this coming?

She closed her eyes and sighed. "What are you going to do, James? Kill me?"

"With this?" he asked, with a snide grin. "This is just a tranquilizer gun."

Then he shot her.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: Violence**

* * *

><p>If Amelia hadn't known James better, she probably would have died. It was lucky for her that she knew he kept a blade in his back pocket at all times. She came to while he was dragging her into some dark, dingy basement. They were underground, that was for sure. The room spun, but she couldn't make out any windows.<p>

He stopped for a moment when he realized she was regaining consciousness. He grabbed her tighter around the waist and continued moving. The floor became the ceiling and she was certain the room was rotating. Bile rose in her throat and she fell against him, making sure to slip the blade out of his pocket as she did so and pushed it up into her sleeve.

"What the hell?" he grunted and shoved her down into a chair. "You weigh a ton."

She couldn't lift her arms. Her entire body weighed more than she could ever lift, and her head hung low. "Thasss rude," she slurred under her breath. The effort made her chest heavy and she fell forward, vomiting on the floor in front of her. It did a little to ease her stomach, but her eyes watered.

He grimaced and pushed her up gingerly with the few fingers like he was afraid she would contaminate him with her vomit. "Gross."

Amelia stared at the ceiling and heaved a heavy sigh. She hadn't been properly drunk in years, but she could put easily put this in the top three stupors she'd ever experienced. "Stupid. I'm a die of an overdose 'cause a you."

"That's a little overdramatic," he said as he tied up her wrists. "You're going to die of far more than that."

"Mr. Moretti," a low female voice asked, "why have you tied up my friend?" Amelia's head shot up to see Poison Ivy standing in the doorway, her deep red hair a stark contrast to the sickly green tint to her skin.

If she had more energy and if Ivy's voice didn't make her skin crawl, Amelia probably would have made a joke about St. Patrick's day coming a little too early. Instead, she kept her mouth shut. Selina had never used a voice changer, nor would she have been stupid enough to allow James to capture her in the first place. If she didn't stay low, Ivy would realize she was a fake in no time at all.

"She appeared at the drop site out of nowhere. Someone had to have told her what was going on, which is probably why I was delivered twelve fucking mercenaries instead of the plutonium I was promised. There's a leak."

Ivy heaved a heavy sigh and took a few steps to approach Amelia, who kept her head down. "Is that true? Did you want the radioactive waste all for yourself?" she asked, running a sharp nail down to caress the side of Amelia's face. "Oh my, did he use my poison on you? He's such a bad boy." Her voice was warm, almost as if she were cooing a child. Amelia held her breath.

She lifted Amelia's face and rotated it from side to side. After a moment she paused, tracing the cord on her voice changer. Her face contorted with rage and she ripped the cord from Amelia's mask. "Who are you?" she demanded. "If you aren't Catwoman, how did you get her suit? Where is she?"

Good question. When she found out herself, she'd pass along the information.

Ivy got close enough that Amelia could feel the woman's breath on her cheek, and curled her fingers around the mask on Amelia's face. "You might not want to do that," Amelia whispered, not loud enough for James to hear. "If anyone without my fingerprints takes this mask off or does it the wrong way, we all die. A little something my friend in the Batcave worked up for me."

It was a lie, of course, but it was something one could expect from the brigade of rodents and couldn't be ignored.

After a bit of fuming Ivy returned her hands to her side and stood tall. "Then I will have my friend here cut your hand off and peel the mask away from your bleeding body." She glanced over at James. "Find out all you can about the leak before you do that, though. You won't have much luck extracting secrets from a corpse."

When she turned her on her heel and left, Amelia breathed a sigh of relief. She could handle James on his worst day in close quarters, a crazy woman with an army of plants not so much. Fighting with James was mental and physical. If she'd learned anything from Selina it was to stay away from people with superhuman abilities. It had taken her a few encounters to fully understand how formidable they really were, and she had the scars to prove it.

Her heart stopped when she saw him approaching her with a hammer in hand. Her grip on the blade only had a few options. She could break free now and knock him out. She'd probably get lost trying to escape, and given her current state, get captured quickly. She wouldn't get very far. She doubted she would even be able to run in a straight line. She could wait for Babs to break free and track her here, which would require for her to hold out until help arrived. This would preserve her identity, but risked a great deal of physical pain and possible dismemberment. Then, the final option: she could use the knife she held in her hand, kill James, and stumble out of here. The only person she would have to avoid was Poison Ivy. Amelia was sneaky, though. She could do that.

Against her better judgment Amelia decided to stick with plan number two, even though she would certainly regret it in a matter of seconds.

"So," James asked, "are we going to have to do this the easy way, or the hard way?" He had a snide, annoying smirk on his face that was just begging for Amelia to punch. He claimed he didn't take any joy from torturing his victims, but he certainly didn't act like it.

He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over, looking her deep in the eyes. He expected an answer. He really wanted to know how she had managed to find out about the plutonium and how she had managed to acquire Catwoman's suit. She doubted he would even believe the truth. He suspected he had another mole, something that didn't really sit well with him since she had repeatedly sold him out to Selina. In truth, there was no mole. He just hadn't gotten rid of all the bugs she'd planted in the first place.

Instead, she rolled her eyes so hard that she could feel her colored contacts rotate with them. She even spat in his face, for good measure. She may be seeing double, but her aim was surprisingly accurate.

He immediately reeled back and wiped off his cheek with the back of his hand. He flicked the spit to the ground with a grimace and looked like he was going to say something, shout at her. It seemed for a moment like he couldn't even think to form words, and instead he punched her hard across the jaw. Tears sprung to her eyes, but she held them in out of sheer pride than anything else. She would certainly not let him see her cry. She clenched her jaw to keep from crying out.

The punches always startled her. She could see them coming, but she'd never fully been able to brace herself for the sting and ache.

It was far from the worst thing she'd experienced. Why was she hyperventilating?

Amelia clenched her eyes shut just as a dark fog crept up on her vision. She tried to regulate her breathing, and focused on slowing her heart, which was racing so fast she could hear her pulse in her ears.

She was so focused on trying to keep herself calm that when James hissed against her ear, she jumped. He'd caught her off guard. "Where's Catwoman?" he asked. "What did you do to her?" His breath was hot against her neck, and his lips just barely brushed her cartilage.

It was funny, how an action that was once a form of comfort quickly became torture.

He swung his hammer, just like he liked to swing his knives. It was mostly a show, though. She'd seen how he worked. James wasn't actually going to torture her, he didn't have the stomach for it. He wasn't like her.

Or the Russians, for that matter, which were probably the cause of her distress at what was now just psychological warfare. James wasn't going to drown or burn her. He probably wouldn't even cut her. He was just going to smack her around and try to compromise her psychologically until she told him what he wanted. It wasn't going to work.

So far she had let him do it. She needed to get a grip. Babs would be here soon. Amelia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. _Calm. _Babs wasn't going to leave her here. She could trust Babs. Barbara Gordon was no Lex Luthor. She was an upstanding citizen, and she wouldn't leave Amelia here to be tortured just to test her loyalty.

Maybe she shouldn't have been so rough on the poor girl.

It wasn't like she could answer his question. He'd recognize her voice instantly, and who knew what would happen then. He'd probably kill her on the spot. Maybe it was paranoia, but she couldn't help but feel like the radioactive poison was meant for her. She would like to live through the night, if at all possible.

She couldn't speak and she didn't want to get hit again, so she shrugged. It was an honest answer, she had no idea where Selina was. She had no idea what her part in her disappearance had been. She didn't even have a clue as to how the catsuit got in her home in the first place.

Apparently he wasn't satisfied with that answer and slammed the hammer down into her knee with a loud _crack_. Before her body had registered the pain, he hit her hard enough across the other side of her face to send the chair toppling over. It knocked the wind out of her, she gasped for air. Her head hit the floor and her shoulder may have dislocated, but she'd need to be free to make sure.

She couldn't breathe. She was seeing stars. Her entire body was on fire, and she couldn't quite figure out which way was up or why she couldn't hear anything over the high-pitched ringing in her ears that sounded vaguely like a scream.

The pain made her stomach roll, but she didn't throw up until he picked up the chair and sat her upright. The world spun, but she couldn't bend forward. She couldn't move. The vomit rolled down her chin and fell in her lap, the acidic scent burning her nose.

Across from her, he folded and re-folded the sleeves on his shirt casually. He regarded her like he was reading the newspaper, bored. She was covered in blood and vomit and she still wasn't _entertaining _enough for him.

Maybe she had underestimated him. Had he lied to her about what he did when he went out, just as she had lied to him? How else could he stomach it? James felt more deeply than she did in every way. How could he do something without flinching that she had to completely shut down to do?

"You feel like talking, now?" he asked. "I can do this all day."

Amelia took a deep breath. He was close, right up in her face.

So she cut her hands free and in a swift movement, sliced a deep cut along his side and to his abdomen. He reeled back in surprise, and before he was able to retaliate she stood and slammed the chair down on his head with as much force as she could muster while supporting her entire weight on one leg. It broke into large pieces, which went flying across the room.

The pain in her leg took her breath away. She held the knife out in a defensive position, but her balance was shit. She could barely stand. Her eye was filled with blood and it pooled around her contact, making it nearly impossible to see. She hastily ripped them from her eyes while he was still on the ground and wiped the blood that had dripped down onto her mouth.

"You gonna kill me, baby?"

James' eyes widened for just a second before he frowned. He was pressing down on his side, which had covered his shirt with enough blood that she wondered if she had cut too deeply. If he didn't receive some form of medical treatment, he would die. He had a long gash on his forehead. His head was probably just as foggy as her own.

Theoretically she had the high ground, but really they were both done for. James made a scramble for the nearby chair leg. She tried to stop him, but collapsed onto the floor in the process.

His fingers wrapped around the chair leg like a club. He was going to bash her skull in if she didn't do something. But she couldn't do anything. She was useless, she couldn't even stand.

So instead, she held the knife to her own throat.

He froze, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his bangs. "What are you doing?"

"You need me. If I die, you father runs out of resources. He goes away for good. You die. Your mother dies. Your sister and her children, all dead."

James stood there for a moment, processing the information and silently fuming. Eventually he threw the club across the room and tried to stand upright, but collapsed back onto the ground. She might have helped him had her hand not been occupied holding a weapon to her own throat.

"There should be gauze and bandages in those cabinets over there," Amelia said, pointing to the cabinetry on the far side of the room. There was a small, rusted sink and a glass cabinet that looked like it may contain medical supplies. Apparently there _was _a plus to starting a knife fight in an abandoned hospital. "Wrap yourself up."

"Why should I?" he growled.

"Because I said so."

He stared at her for a moment, looking her up and down. His lip curled. "You wouldn't do it. All you care about is yourself. You don't have it in you."

He might be right, she didn't know. She didn't care to find out. She stared him in the eyes, and only let her gaze flicker over to the medical cabinet for just a second. The knife bit into her neck slightly, drawing a small drop of blood that dripped down onto her collar. "Did I fucking stutter?"

Finally, James gave in and half crawled the few yards over to the medical cabinet and propped himself up onto the counter. He removed his shirt and searched through the cupboard, eventually finding the supplies he needed to bandage himself up. He swayed slightly with the effort and closed his eyes.

He wasn't covered in bruises as he usually was, she noticed. He was always covered in marks his father had given him, but today he was bare. If she remembered correctly, she hadn't been able to catch the scent of alcohol on his breath. He certainly didn't smell like cigarettes. A hint of a beard was starting to show up on his face, unusual for a man who had always been more meticulous about his appearance than she was.

It hadn't been that long since they'd been together, but she was sitting across from a completely different person. It was almost comical. She'd torn his life apart, and immediately after leaving her he got his life together. Maybe he had been right from the very beginning, maybe she did destroy people. Maybe she was toxic.

He lowered himself slowly to the floor and leaned his back up against the cabinetry. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

She wasn't exactly sure what he meant. She hadn't seen him since that afternoon at the café, and the only reason why she was here was for Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. She wouldn't engage him, though. All she needed to do was wait. Babs would be here any minute now. The paranoid Bat-apprentice had probably put a tracker on Amelia somewhere when she wasn't paying attention. There was no way she _didn't _know where they were, was there?

"What do you want the plutonium for?"

He stared intently at the floor.

"James," she insisted. He flinched like she'd slapped him. She swallowed. The guilt for tricking him still weighed heavy in her stomach, but feeling sorry for what she did wouldn't help him. It would only make him hate her more. Plus, he had just tied her up and beat her senseless. "If you don't tell me I'll have to find out some other way, and you'll just regret it."

He glared at her. "I'm getting rid of you. I have a plan."

"Obviously not a very well-thought-out one, if you're involving _those _to," Amelia said, tilting her head toward the door Ivy had exited earlier. "You know they're using you, right? They just want to get the Joker out of Arkham. They don't care about you. They don't give a single shit about your _plan_."

"You don't know what you're talking about. You think you know what's going on, but you have no idea."

"You're delusional. Or do you get off on being used by women? Because you sure as hell make it easy."

"The Joker's going to help me get rid of _you_," James snapped, not even realizing that she was provoking him on purpose. "He knows a guy."

Amelia frowned. A guy? Who? "If you kill me," she warned, "you will murder everyone you love in the process."

"There are worse things than being dead," he cackled, laughing so hard a tear ran down the corner of his face. He met her eyes and said in that nonchalant tone of his, "If you love anything, Princess, if you're even capable of love, you might want to start saying your final farewells."

"What?" Amelia demanded, just as there was a loud bang from the other side of the door. Batgirl burst in, a wall of thick vines following her.

Babs spotted her and rushed over, hoisting her up under the armpits and helping her stand. Amelia tried to shake her off. "What are you talking about?" she shouted over the hundreds of plants that were now bursting into the room with a roar.

She was focused on his eerie smile, which froze her enough for Babs to finally drag her away. She used her grappling hook to pull them both up into a vent at the top of the far wall, half tossing Amelia into the narrow space before her.

Amelia thought she would enjoy being rescued. Now she wanted to go back.

Resting most of her weight on her knees caused Amelia enough pain to make her cry out and start sweating, but if she didn't keep moving forward, Babs wouldn't make it through.

Babs had managed to shut the vent just as Poison Ivy burst in the room, a noxious looking wall of green gas following her. It wasn't until then that Amelia noticed the long scratch on Babs' cheek, and the twigs in her hair.

The shit she put this poor girl through.

Annoyed by her hesitation, Babs sent a glare in her direction. "Go!" she ordered. "I would rather not die today, thanks."

Crawling brought tears to Amelia's eyes, but she wasn't about to slow down. "I couldn't help it," she joked through gritted teeth, "you're just so damn pretty."

"Yeah, well you look like hell." Behind them, more vines burst into the ventilation shaft. Babs stopped and turn around, shooting out what looked like a web-like polymer from a gun on her belt that eventually expanded to form a seal across the entire entrance.

"Keep going," she ordered. "That won't hold them for long, but it should keep the gas out. Turn left up here."

Amelia followed her directions until they managed to make it to an empty corridor. She lowered herself down onto the floor slowly, collapsing against the wall. Darkness crept at the corners of her vision, and she fought to remain conscious. Babs must have dropped down beside her, Amelia hadn't heard her. She grabbed Amelia and half carried her out a set of double doors where the Batmobile was waiting, a crazed Harley Quinn sitting on the hood.

"Kitty?" the woman asked in her shrill voice. "What're you doing here with that stinking rodent?"

Had Ivy not told her? Amelia didn't have time to come up with an answer before Babs had dropped her and rushed at the other woman, bobbing and weaving to get close enough to her that she was able to get behind her. Babs grabbed her in a headlock, and soon she was unconscious.

Amelia, however, had yet to welcome the darkness. Babs hoisted her up and tossed her into the back of the Batmobile with a grunt. "God you need to lose weight."

"And that utility belt doesn't hide your love handles."

Barbara slammed the door shut, hitting the top of Amelia's head in the process.

"That really helps the concussion, thank you."

"Don't mention it."

The Batmobile roared to life and sped away just as Ivy emerged from the front doors, a wall of plant following at her heels.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry for the long delay. I've had a lot of school work to do, I'm starting two other stories, AND this was really hard to write for obvious content reasons. Plus I'm filled with the overwhelming urge to completely change Mice Will Play because it's a hot mess and not nearly as ~together~ as I would like so I'm a little angsty. This is probably what I get for posting things as I write them. Basically I'm full of excuses. It will not happen again. (I may be lying.)

Also: I _am_, in other news, really excited about these Tim Drake fics I've already planned. They're gonna be lots of fun (more exciting/less dark/completely different cast of cannon characters).


	4. Chapter 3

Dick could hear them bickering before he even entered the room.

"So," Babs growled slowly through what he could only assume was gritted teeth, "when does the ball hit the ground?"

Amelia groaned loudly and whined, "I don't care."

After a huff and a bang, he heard an angry, "_You're_ the one who asked me to tutor you."

"It wasn't a request made with sound mind. I was highly medicated at the time."

Their heads both shot up as the door opened. Amelia was walking slowly on the treadmill, carrying most of her weight on her hands. Her body was shining in sweat, and her jaw locked every time she took a step, grimacing with pain.

Part of him wondered if her doctor had even cleared her to get up out of bed, let alone start walking.

Across from her was Babs, sitting hunched over a desk with her thick, red curls piled atop her disheveled head. She pushed her glasses farther up on her nose with another huff.

Dick frowned. "Didn't the doctor say you could start trying to stand _next_ week?"

Amelia's lip curled. "Shut up," she snapped.

He rolled his eyes and motioned for Barbara to join him out in the hall. They ducked out just behind the door. She glanced back at the room and returned her gaze to him with raised brows. "What are you up to?"

How could she possibly know? He sighed. It was no use. There was no point in denying anything, especially not to her. "Has she said whether or not she's going to keep helping you recover Arkham's lost patients?"

"Yeah, I think she said, um…" Babs paused and looked toward the ceiling, trying to remember the exact words. When she spoke, she imitated Amelia's light German accent while adding in a shrill nasal-ey tone that was all her in own imagination, "_I think I've just about hit my quota. I'll leave it to you guys to get your asses kicked from now on._ Please. I, for one, would not have gotten _my _pretty little ass kicked."

Dick hadn't cared to look at the numbers, mostly because he didn't want to know, but he was fairly certain she'd been responsible for a few hundred deaths at least. The people she let out of Arkham killed people. _She _killed people. Not to mention the major players she let out, like Ivy and Quinn, who were still causing mayhem and destruction all over the city. If they succeeded in getting the Joker out, well… he didn't want to think about it.

Had she really ever saved anyone? He didn't know. She'd saved his life a few times, and if he counted all the lives he'd saved, he suspected her count leveled out at around zero. He hadn't been doing much good lately, though. Mainly just writing tickets. The life of a cop was exceptionally dull, and he hadn't yet achieved the rank necessary to ascend to the homicide unit.

"Did you try to convince her otherwise?" he asked.

Babs nodded. "She told me not to get greedy." When he groaned, she pressed on, "So, what don't you want to tell her?"

He grimaced. "Nothing good."

She frowned. "What is it?"

"Her friend is in the hospital."

Crossing her arms across her chest, Babs gave him the coldest look he'd ever seen from her before. She leaned right up close to him and hissed, "Richard Grayson! Do you really mean to tell me that you would keep some very terrible news from someone just for your own personal gain?" Her nose flared and she sounded like she would much rather be yelling.

"Um…" he froze. "I, uh, well… no?"

"Because everyone has the freedom to choose, right?"

"Um… yes?"

"And manipulating people like that is simply the behavior of a downright awful evil hag like your good friend in there, right?"

Against all his wishes, he could feel the heat rising in his face. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to shift out of the way of her gaze. "Undoubtedly."

"So, what are you planning on doing about it?"

"Tell her the truth?"

"You're going to march in there and tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, go on."

He could feel the heat of her gaze on his back as he turned on his heel and entered the room. She never used to be this assertive, but more recently she'd been setting him straight as part of her daily routine. He was starting to wonder if it was actually her gaining more confidence, or if he was just becoming, as she said, a manipulative downright awful evil hag himself.

"Hey, Amelia?"

"Out with it, Grayson."

Dick sighed. He could never predict how she would take bad news. She either pretended it didn't affect her or reacted to the extreme, and neither were particularly enjoyable. "I just heard from one of my friends on the force. Your mother's friend, Camille, is in the hospital."

Amelia laughed bitterly, a bead of sweat rolling down into her eye. "That's hardly police business," she scoffed with a grimace. "She's a bulimic alcoholic, she's always in the hospital."

"No, I mean," he paused. His voice got quiet. "There was a man, someone recognized her stitching in your suit. They were asking her about you. They're looking for the woman in black."

Her eyes went wide for a second and he that he could see her gulp. She hastily stopped the treadmill and limped down, sitting down on a couch and wiping her sweat-soaked body off with a towel. "Did she tell him anything?" she asked breathlessly.

"No. Oh, and, she's fine in case you were wondering. Just a little shaken."

"Yeah, yeah," she shrugged him off and stared intently at the carpet fibers. "James said the Joker was going to put him in contact with someone, I don't know who. Said he was going to help him get rid of me for good. I thought I had until they broke the Joker out, but I guess they accelerated their plan."

Dick remembered the letter Charles had given him at Arkham. He'd read it and promptly burned it. Everyone was better off if she wasn't made aware of its contents. He sat beside her with a frown. "Didn't you blackmail the mob? Can't they not kill you?"

"He said they were going to fix that. I don't know how." She leaned forward and put her face in her hands. The couch sunk and he slid against her. She was sweating, but her body was surprisingly cold. "He ordered plutonium off the black market, from the Serbs I think. I don't know what he's going to do with it, but killing me with it won't do him any good. He's got something else planned"

She was normally two steps ahead of everyone in terms of cold, calculating manipulation. That was, with the exception of Lex Luthor. He couldn't quite tell if she was afraid or simply angry because she'd been bested. "We need to find this guy before he gets to anyone else."

"You don't say?"

"Well excuse me for stating the obvious," Dick said, rolling his eyes. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "So, when do we pay Mr. Moretti a visit?"

"_We_ aren't doing anything. You're taking a break from this life, Grayson. Let me honor that. I can find things out my own way."

Something about that didn't sit well in his stomach. "I don't think so. Whenever you do things your way, people usually end up getting maimed or murdered."

Her head jerked back and, if he didn't know her any better, he'd say she looked offended. She was probably just faking. "Is that a bad thing? I like to think there's a difference in my way and your way and that's that my way works. Me and mine always end up in one piece."

Dick's voice caught in his throat. Wally. He sometimes stared at the ceilings at night when he couldn't sleep and thought that if maybe he'd been less rigid, maybe if he'd been willing to dig his hands a little deeper in the mud, then maybe his friend would still be alive. Maybe she was right. Maybe you couldn't succeed and still come out clean on the other end.

Back from behind the desk, Babs cleared her throat. "I thought we entered this arrangement under the assumption that you were done murdering people. Or am I the only one remembering that conversation?" she asked. Her brow furrowed. She was worried. She was begging him.

"I never said I would stop eliminating threats as they came, princess. I said I would stop dropping men as it tickles my fancy. See the difference?"

Babs' mouth became a firm line and she leaned forward in her seat, gripping the arms of her chair like a vise. "The only difference I see is you murdering people to make your own job easier and calling it necessity because it helps you sleep better at night."

His gaze shot between the two of them, praying that he wouldn't end up having to separate the two in a fight. Amelia started cackling and wiped something from her cheek, he wasn't sure if it was sweat or one of the tears that had sprung up in her eyes. "Yeah, I cry myself to sleep every night atop my piles of money. The fact that everyone I love is alive and well eats away at me constantly. It's really a terrible feeling—one I wouldn't expect _you _to know on account of, you know, all your dead friends."

Dick was out of his chair and had an arm across Babs' shoulders before she'd even had the opportunity to take a step forward. She gabbed at his sleeves, but didn't push forward. "I'm going to wipe that stupid grin off her face," she snarled. He knew otherwise. She was glad he was holding her back. There was no way he could have actually kept her in place if she really wanted to get away.

"I think you want to leave," he murmured. "Right now."

She faltered, and turned her angry gaze toward him. "You're taking her side?"

He swallowed and looked somewhere over her shoulder. He wasn't sure who to believe. He wanted to believe Babs, he did. He trusted her with every fiber of his being. There was some part of him that was always hyperaware of her. She was ingrained in him, down to his core. But she was wrong this time. Amelia was right. Her way worked. His didn't.

"You can't possibly trust her."

"She's just egging you on. Go home, I can handle this."

"No, you can't." Babs sighed and backed up toward the door. She paused at the doorframe and looked Amelia square in the eye. "One of these days I'm going to put you away for good," she said, voice cold, "and I'm going to enjoy it."

"No you won't," Amelia chimed in with a wave. "Toodles."

Dick shut the door to avoid any more outbursts. "We need to find James. He probably don't know much, but he can get us in contact with people who do."

"Keep James out of it. We don't need him."

He frowned. "Of course we need him. How else are we going to find this guy?"

"Stay away from Moretti," she snapped. "We can go straight to the source—Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy. They'll know more anyway."

"Right, because that worked out so well for you last time."

Amelia frowned and laced her fingers in a tight web against her mouth, knuckles white. "Selina. She's their friend. We find her and they'll trust us. Well, me, at least."

"Great plan!" he exclaimed.

"Thanks, I thought so."

"Flawless."

"As usual."

"Except for one tiny detail."

She frowned. "And that is?"

"Selina Kyle is dead. She's been dead for a while. We all gave up looking for her, even Bruce. If he can't find her, nobody can."

"Do you have a body?" she challenged.

"She was your only known contact after your fallout with Lex. Where he's concerned, there's little chance of finding a body."

"So you mean to tell me that Bruce Wayne, the greatest detective on Earth and possibly in the known verse, simply gave up looking for her without a shred of evidence? That's not his style. What did he tell you when you asked, that he turned up nothing?"

Yes. "Well, not exactly _nothing_—"

"—He's lying. He's obviously hiding something. She's in hiding, he's helping, and that's the reason why _I _can't find her despite spending months of my time and a small fortune on finding her."

He hated that she had a point. He wouldn't put it past Bruce to do such a thing. "Regardless, that doesn't help anything. If she's hiding and he's helping her, then there's no way we can find her."

"_You_ can hack his systems."

"Or I can _not_ piss Bruce off and you can pay James a friendly visit. Give him a little hell on account of your leg and all."

She ground her teeth and stared down at the floor. "I don't _want_ to hurt him. Whatever he did—we're even, squared away. No one lays a finger on Moretti."

"This guy is going to kill you in the time it'll take for you to find her, if she's even still alive. I'm not going to sit back and watch that happen when we have a clear answer standing right in front of us."

Amelia nodded, and after a long while glanced up at him. She offered a nervous smile, her eyes searching his face for something. He didn't know what. He didn't quite know how to react to her sudden honesty, either. "I don't want you involved, okay? I know what I have to do, and I'll get it out of him if I have to." She stood and grabbed the bottle of water she'd placed by the treadmill, tossing it back and forth in her hands. "In the meantime, you should probably back off. We haven't been seen together lately. You should be in the clear, but if this guy actually is one of Lex's, as I suspect he is, _and _is in contact with the Joker…"

Dick's stomach dropped. He wasn't one of Lex's. He knew that. He should say something, but he couldn't. If he did, he'd have to tell everything. She couldn't know everything. She was also planning something, something that was probably incredibly stupid, which is why she wasn't telling him about it. She thought everything that was going on was her doing because of her involvement with Lex. It wasn't. He felt sick.

Retirement wasn't suiting him very well. He wanted to get out, he really did, but he'd created a mess that needed cleaning up. She was about to bark up the wrong tree and there was nothing he could do about it.

He offered her a smile. "Don't worry about me. I'm retired, not dead. I'm not totally useless yet."

He needed to get this settled before she needed to get involved. If she found out more than she should, it was on him. Whatever she decided to do with that information, it was on him. If she died in the process, it was on him.

He'd somehow managed to find himself, once again, at the center of a rapidly unraveling web.

* * *

><p>He knew he was being followed. Dick cursed. Of course he knew he was being followed, James wasn't an idiot. Dick just really was hoping he would be. Unfortunately there was a little more to him than violent tendencies and great hair.<p>

He'd been following him on foot to what Dick had assumed to be a rendezvous point, as he was carrying what appeared to be a heavy backpack, but he must have noticed. He'd turned a quick corner, snuck through a back alley, and sped away on his motorcycle.

Luckily they hadn't had a chance to go very far, and Dick had had his own bike hidden close by.

He swerved out from behind the semi and sped up to catch up with James, who had just spotted him in one of his mirrors and begun to weave his way in and out of traffic at what had to be at least ninety miles an hour. It was dangerous going that fast on a motorcycle without a helmet. He had the feeling that Amelia may literally kill him if she found out Moretti had taken a tumble and died, especially after labeling him off-limits.

Dick pulled up right beside him and pointed to the side of the road. He'd pull over, if he knew what was good for him.

No such luck. James wasn't dumb, but he wasn't smart enough to pull over when he was outmatched. Or so he thought, until the little swine produced a gun from inside his jacket and pointed it directly at him.

Luckily the sun had begun to set along the extensive stretch of highway that connected the shipyard district to the more inland portion of the city. They were headed directly west, and the way the sun hit Dick's helmet made the light bounce back directly into his eyes. He couldn't look long enough to aim and missed, shooting out a tire in a church owned minivan that had been cruising in the slow lane.

_I hope Jesus has insurance._

Dick grabbed a hook from the belt around his waist and shot it at James' bike. It latched itself onto the body of the motorcycle, and began reeling him in.

James either wasn't at all fazed, or it hadn't yet stunk in that he'd been caught.

Dick nearly threw up as the world suddenly rotated. He was spinning so fast, too fast. The asphalt bit into his back, then his shoulders, then his head. He brought his arms up to protect his neck as he came sliding to a halt on the side of the road, beneath an underpass. Instead of allowing himself to be reeled in, James had stopped his bike abruptly. Dick had been pulled from his motorcycle and his shoulder torn from its socket, falling head over heels onto the hard ground.

He glanced up and could see James headed toward him, long cuts along his palms and an ugly looking gash on his forehead. His blonde hair matted with blood on the side of his head, and his mouth chiseled into a hard, angry line. He didn't have his gun with him. It had probably skidded away into the woods off the side of the highway. That was one good thing.

Dick held his breath and forced his shoulder back into its socket. He gritted his teeth against the pain, covered in a cold sweat. He made sure his helmet was on his head securely and wouldn't come off. His gloves were on, eliminating fingerprints. The bike, which he'd taken from Bruce, was untraceable. If he got away, there would be nothing to trace him back to this. Good.

He hadn't even had time to pull himself to his knees before James reached him and gave him a hard, sharp kick to the head that nearly knocked him back over. Dick grabbed hold of his leg and tugged it just hard enough to knock him off balance, causing him to fall over backward. James' head, unprotected by a helmet, slammed down onto the asphalt with a grotesque _crack_.

He must have been dazed and most likely concussed, because he didn't put up a fight as Dick dragged him off the side of the road and tied him up against a tree. To avoid any more of a spectacle, assuming the church group about a quarter mile down the highway hadn't already called the police, he grabbed the bikes and set them to rest along the side of the road.

This wasn't a particularly friendly city, and for once Dick was grateful. For all anyone was concerned, they could have taken a tumble. They were just two friends pulled over on the side of the road to catch a smoke. No one cared enough to check otherwise.

Dick returned to the tree. It appeared that James was starting to get his bearings straight, and he struggled against the restraints.

"James," he said in the lowest voice he could manage, not that James would ever suspect the useless nerd he made fun of in high school to be capable of beating him and tying him up. "You're going to tell me what I need to know, and then I'm going to call the hospital to get you sorted. You'll tell them you fell off your motorcycle, and they'll gladly take care of you. Understand?"

His head lulled to the side and he let out a groan, and Dick began to suspect that he had been more than scraped up in the fall. From his angle, his wrist looked like it may be broken. "Fuck off," he hissed, and spat at the ground by his feet.

Dick frowned. This wasn't going to go the easy way. He hadsuspected, perhaps even hoped, that it wouldn't. He hated James. There was nothing redeemable about his slimy being, with his slicked back hair and self-assured, snide grin. Dick hated everything about him, and always had. He didn't understand why Amelia insisted he be left untouched, nor how she could have stomached being around the toad for as long as she had. She hated him as much as Dick did, and he'd been nearly as awful to her as he had been to Dick. If it came down to James' life or Amelia's, he'd choose hers every time. And, really, that was what was on the line.

He dug the heel of his boot into James' wrist, pushing it up hard against the sharp bark of the tree and earning a scream. "Are you ready to talk?" he asked. "I can do this all day."

James' lips curled into a snarl. "What do you want?"

"Who is the Joker's contact?"

"Of course you work for her. So she's not even doing her own field work now? What, she got promoted?" James let out a short, bitter laugh. "I don't know; don't even know where he is."

Dick dug his heel into James' arm once more.

"Jesus!" he screamed, his breathing becoming erratic. "I don't know. They dumped me once they found out I was compromised. I don't even know where _they _are."

How useless could you get? Dick sighed. James didn't know a thing, but it did confirm his suspicions—whoever they were working with wasn't going after VanAlstyne just for James' sake. This guy had his own agenda, which only meant one thing: that Charles hadn't been lying. Dick had been hoping he had been. The Joker was nothing compared to this guy, whoever he was. His stomach sank.

He didn't want to die. He didn't want anyone else to die. The only way to avoid this was to find this man and stop him, but he was chasing a ghost and he was doing it alone. He couldn't trust Amelia, and he didn't want to risk getting anyone else on this guy's radar.

"How were they going to break the Joker out?"

James shook his head. "They're not doing that anymore. There's no time. They ran, I think. They're in none of the usual hideouts. I can't even guarantee that they're still in the country."

Charles' words burned in his ears, and he felt sick.

If this man got his way, it was about to be a very, very dangerous time for everyone who took refuge behind a mask.

* * *

><p>The monotony of work did little to soothe anxiety's tight grip on his throat, and Dick found himself having to down more medication than Dr. Carter would feel comfortable with just to remain functional. It was happening again. He was stuck, his world was about to fall down around him, and more of his friends may very well end up dead. He had so many secrets to tell, but no one to tell them to.<p>

It was storming outside, and occasionally the lights would flicker. The sudden darkness would be just enough to snap him out of his daydreams. He would glance down at the paperwork he was supposed to be signing, only to find that he had written again and again, "_Ghost_." They were trying to find someone who was invisible. There were no photographs of him, no records. Not one security camera on his way to and from Camille's loft had gotten an image of the man. There was no DNA at the scene. It was like the woman had spontaneously injured herself—even the hospital was beginning to have their doubts. They were sending her in for a psych evaluation. They thought the drugs she'd been taken had combined to induce hallucinations.

He was like smoke. Every time he thought he got close, like with James, the man and everyone who knew of him disappeared into thin air. Everyone who might know about him was fleeing like rats from a sinking ship. It had been a week and neither he nor Amelia had gotten any closer. They were running out of options. Short of storming Bruce's office and demanding Selina's whereabouts at gunpoint, they had nothing else left to possibly do but wait. Dick was starting to get the feeling that Selina had fled from Gotham once she got a wind of who was coming to down, if she hadn't been killed yet.

There was nothing left to do but sit and wait for the next wave to come crashing down upon them. Whether or not that wave was big enough to destroy the city had yet to be seen. There was no way to prepare for it. They were sitting, useless, anxiety building every second the blow didn't come.

The hands around his throat grew tighter again and he found himself digging through his desk and taking a pill from the stash he'd hidden, taped to the top of the drawer. Thunder boomed, lights flickered, and the pill slid smoothly down his throat. He closed his eyes and waited for the next lightning strike.

How could you catch a ghost?

"Grayson?"

Dick's head shot up. His partner, a kid just barely older than he was with sandy brown hair, was leaning up outside the doorway of one of the interrogation rooms. Kennedy was naïve. He may have been older than Dick, but he certainly didn't act his age. "Yeah?"

"You're gonna wanna come in here."

He frowned. He hadn't even seen him get up. Dick rounded the corner into the room, only to see Amelia sitting across from his partner. Her coat was soaking wet, but the rest of her was dry. Her hair curled around her face, and she beamed up at him with ruby lips. The last time he'd seen her with lipstick, she'd stolen his bike. What was she planning this time?

"Hello, Richard," she laughed, her voice as light as air. "Officer… Kennedy, was it? Was just telling me about that one time you, well," she paused to laugh again, "I won't make you relive it."

Kennedy was loving the attention. She'd probably been flirting with him the whole time. "Your friend, here, has donated nothing short of a fortune to the department. It's awfully generous of you, ma'am."

"Nonsense, these budget cuts have been nothing short of ridiculous. Besides, I did implement a few conditions of my own."

Dick frowned. "Like what?"

Kennedy rolled his eyes. "We can't say anything about her to the press, no matter what. The contract was pretty binding; the chief read it up earlier."

"Compliments to my lawyers." She turned to Dick. "My name has been in the press quite enough, I think," she explained.

"Well, let me say that what you've done is nearly heroic. You've saved quite a few jobs, Miss VanAlstyne, probably even my own."

Kennedy reached across the table to shake her hand, and it was clear she wanted very little to do with him. "I'm not here strictly just to donate to the department," she confessed.

No kidding. "Why are you here, then?"

The light caught her grey eyes just right as the thunder boomed overhead. She was loving this. Her lips curled into a grin more befitting of a Cheshire cat. "Good question, Officer," she purred. She sounded remarkably like Selina. "Why, I'm here to turn myself in."

His partner didn't seem to understand. He laughed.

Amelia threw her head back and laughed back, exposing every inch of her pale throat. She wasn't laughing because she was joking. She was laughing at him. This poor, poor man was about to hurt very, very badly. "I am the Catwoman."

Dick's stomach dropped. He could see where this was headed. He gave Amelia a pleading look, _Please, don't. _She saw it, but only responded by blowing a kiss in his direction.

Kennedy raised his eyebrows. "That's a funny joke, Miss VanAlstyne. Everyone knows you were attacked by the Catwoman just a couple years ago. She's awfully dangerous, that one."

There were no records of Selina actually being in VanAlstyne manor, none. The police had been looking for the Catwoman for years. There probably wasn't enough evidence to prove her case, but there was probably enough to get her locked up in Arkham. She was just a poor girl driven mad, holding onto the image of the woman who first started her downward spiral. She had plenty of criminal activities she could bring to light, he wondered which ones she would choose.

The lights went out for just a moment. He couldn't see anything, and searched blindly for her. If he could just get ahold of her, he could make her confess that it was all a joke. She couldn't possibly be planning on getting herself admitted to Arkham. If she was locked up there, she probably _would _be driven mad.

Actually, she'd probably use it as a networking opportunity.

She wasn't in her seat.

When the lights came on, he saw that she had managed to produce the whip from her purse. She'd backed Kennedy's chair into the corner and had it wrapped around his neck, rooting him into his seat by curling one of her long legs around and placing her heel perfectly between his legs. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the gleam of the knives that protruded from her stilettos.

"Would you like to know the real joke, officer?" she cooed, her lips resting against Kennedy's ear. "_You_." The boy was trembling, probably afraid that she would start cutting off his extremities, starting with his favorite one.

Dick had no choice but to produce his gun and point it at her. His breathing was heavy. His heart pounded despite the drugs he had just taken. "You're insane."

She uncurled herself from Kennedy's chair and grabbed his face, planting a rough kiss on his cheek. She dropped the whip and strode over toward Dick, more confident and calm than he'd ever seen her. She enjoyed playing the game. In her home waiting she was just a scared girl, but here she was… something else. She really was unhinged.

He wondered if she would fight him. He braced himself to be hit.

Instead, she produced her wrists. "Oh, I certainly hope so."

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry this took so long! I just finished this and haven't done a whole lot of editing, so please excuse any typos. I wanted to get it out as soon as possible. I ended up having to write about a hundred pages worth of academic research, which can quite quickly drain the creativity from you. I'm on break now, so I'm looking forward to writing more regularly. Thanks for sticking with me :)


	5. Chapter 4

Warning: angst, drugs, and blood ahead.

* * *

><p>Amber wound her long, thin fingers around the cell bars. The years had dulled their shine, they were covered with oils and fingerprints from years of visitors. Time had done her well, she looked much healthier than the last time Amelia had seen her. She'd cut her dark brown hair into a short, smart bob around her jaw. She didn't say anything, just stared.<p>

Eventually, Amelia found her voice. "No offence, but I'm surprised they let you come. Charles _is _somewhere upstairs, after all."

She laughed a little and looked down, grabbing at her forearm. The long, white scar peeked out from between her fingers. "Me too, but Dr. Crane said it would be good for you if I came."

Amelia opened her mouth to say something, but there was nothing to say. She had no words. She just stared at that ugly, long thing that marred the poor girl's otherwise perfect skin. Her lip curled.

Tracing her gaze, Amber frowned. "You were just scared," she insisted. "We both were. I don't blame you, you know."

"I was weak."

"Of course you were." She swallowed, swaying on her feet and returning her gaze back down to the ground. "What happened was horrific, but you saved me. If it wasn't for you, I would have died."

"Murdered," Amelia corrected. "Don't say 'died'. You _die _in your sleep at a ripe old age. When someone ties you up like a plaything and leaves you to starve in the dark, that's _murder_. Call it what it is."

Across from her, Amelia heard a sniffle. Amber lifted her head and wiped her eyes, which were spilling over with large, fat tears. "I know," she admitted with a quiver in her lower lip. "I just don't like to think about it."

Amelia frowned. Why would Dr. Crane think a person more broken than she was would make a good therapy tool?

"Dr. Crane told me that you'd murdered people."

Of course he did. "I'm not weak anymore." When Amber took a step back from the cell, Amelia laughed. "Afraid?"

Amber's hands were shaking. "No," she said as she dug around in her purse. From it she produced a key, which she nervously shoved into the lock on Amelia's cell door. She glanced back and forth, looking for guards. There were none.

In a swift motion, she swung the door open and stepped inside. Her eyes were alight and her chest was heaving. "I know you won't hurt me."

Amelia stood. She was taller than Amber, which was made more apparent when she stood chest to chest with the girl. "Everyone says we're exactly alike, Charles and I," she murmured, her lips lightly brushing against the other girl's temple. "And you feel _safe_?"

Amelia wasn't quite sure, but she thought she could feel Amber lean in closer. Her soft hair pressed against her mouth. Her shampoo smelled wonderful. Amelia couldn't remember the last time she'd been allowed a shower. "I know you won't hurt me," she repeated strongly, confidently.

"You stole a key from a guard and locked yourself in a cell with a psychopath, and yet you feel safe." She threw her head back and laughed again. "God you're dumb."

Amber looked up, capturing Amelia's gaze with her stupid, bright eyes. She couldn't look away, even when Amber grabbed her hand. "I trust you."

"No one trusts me."

"_I _do. With my life. You hurt me once because you were afraid, and you regretted it so much that you became everything you despise in order to make sure that never happened again. I've wanted to come see you for so long, but I didn't want to hurt you."

Amelia felt her lip curling again. "I didn't do it for you," she sneered. "I _am _afraid. I'm _always _afraid. Don't look at me like I'm some hero. If that night happened all over again right now, I wouldn't save you. I'd let you rot like the dozens of other women that were left down there to rot. In the dark, alone."

Amber started to back away, but Amelia grabbed onto her wrist. She looked down, then back up. This time she was afraid. "Please," she begged, "let me go."

Her eyebrows rose. "But I thought you trusted me with your life. That hurts."

"Please don't hurt me."

"Don't act like you didn't want this to happen. No one walks into a hospital full of very bad people and trusts them. You wanted me to kill you when you came in here because you don't have the strength to do it yourself. _That's_ why you stole that guard's keys. You think I'm a monster like the rest of them."

Tears sprung to Amber's eyes, and that's when Amelia knew she was right. "I'm sorry, you're right. Please just let me go. I want to live."

"I gave up everything that night," Amelia spat, holding Amber's arm in a grip so tight that it may bruise. "You have a worthless life that you don't even want, and I have nothing. The only woman I ever loved jumped from the top of a skyscraper because of the shame _I _brought on her when I saved you. I wish I was dead every damn day, but I don't do anything because I owe the people who have made sacrifices for me. Don't you dare throw your life away like that."

Amber started panicking, her gaze flickering back and forth between Amelia's arm around her wrist and her face. She was breathing heavily again, tears streaming down her face. "I just want to go home."

Amelia wanted to let her, to release her, but she found herself rooted in place with her grip as tight as ever.

After only a brief moment of hesitation, Amber reached into her bag and produced a knife, plunging it deep into Amelia's arm.

Amelia cried out and thought she might faint, stumbling back against her bed and propping herself against the wall. Her body started shaking, and it hurt far less than she expected it to.

She was in shock, and if she didn't do anything about it soon, she very well may bleed to death. Where were the guards now?

Amelia removed her shirt and was in the process of tearing it up to use as a bandage, holding it tightly between her teeth, when Amber snapped out of it. "I'm not weak," she yelled. "I'm not!"

Amelia wasn't paying attention, she was too busy wrapping her own arm up. "I'll show you," Amber insisted.

Amelia didn't look up, but she could see it in her peripheral vision when Amber raised the knife and plunged it deeply into her own chest. When she collapsed onto the ground, Amelia looked on in horror. There was so much blood. It was everywhere. All over the floor, her bed, her hands. "Amber?" she begged, dropping down beside the girl on the floor.

Two doctors finally arrived. "Help her! You need to help her, I think she's dead." She put her head in her hands, covering her face with blood. She wasn't sure if it was entirely her own. "Oh God, I think she's dead. This is all my fault."

But the doctors didn't help her. Instead, they grabbed Amelia roughly by the arms and shoved her down onto the ground. Her head hit the concrete and left her dazed. She fought against them, but one of them jabbed a needle in her arm. She felt her body getting weak and tired. It was useless. They were going to leave her there to die.

"Who are you talking about, Amelia?" the doctor with the needle asked. He had a kind face. She wasn't sure if she had seen him before, she certainly didn't remember his name.

"Amber! She's right there you idiot—" Amelia lifted her head to see, but there was nothing there. There was no body. She looked over to her arm, which was starting to hurt. There was a large spring sticking out of it. She glanced up to the bed, which had been torn apart.

Had she done this all to herself?

Tears welled up in her eyes and she placed her head back down on the floor. The room was starting to spin. "I did this, didn't I?"

The doctor looked sad. "Is Amber the name of the girl you mentioned in therapy last week?"

How long had she been here? Amelia tried to remember, but she couldn't quite place it. In fact, she couldn't quite remember arriving. Still, she nodded. "Probably, I don't remember."

"Amelia, the girl you saved committed suicide two years ago. She's dead. This is the fourth time you've seen her, the fourth time you've hurt yourself. She's not real. Please, remember to call me next time."

"I don't even remember your name."

"I'm your doctor," he said with a smile. "I'm Dr. Crane."

* * *

><p>Bruce surveyed Dick's uniform with a frown. Bruce had never quite liked the police. He liked what they stood for, in theory, but there were more corrupt officers than there were honest ones. Amelia had once referred to them as pawns. The Batman had some, she had many, and the rest were owned by the mob. Compared to the rest of the police force, the few decent people they had were inconsequential.<p>

There was a saying about honest cops: there are no honest cops. There were once, but then they were found at the bottom of the bay.

No one in the force liked him, really. He was honest, from a wealthy background. Even his own partner had been known to take a bribe from time to time. Not for anything major, but just for looking in the other direction.

Bruce never looked in the other direction, he didn't believe in it. For him, there was justice and injustice. Black and white. He never toed the line, not once. That was why he was angry when Dick joined the force—because in doing so, he was forced to live in the grey area.

He saw himself as a judge: impartial and fair. Dick saw him for what he was: a hypocrite who liked to play god. His relationship with Selina Kyle, the very definition of "moral grey area", was only just one reason why Dick loathed his former mentor's sense of moral superiority. Bruce hated himself for loving her, of course, but that hadn't stopped him from sneaking off in the middle of the night for all these years. He kept a secret hoard containing the weaknesses of each of the League members, even kryptonite. When Dick had found out and confronted him about it, reminding him that the security systems in the Batcave were _not _infallible, they had gotten into an argument so central to his own moral compass that Dick left. There were other factors that contributed to his giving up the title of Robin, of course, but that was a major one. Bruce wasn't a god, he was just paranoid.

Dick didn't want to end up like that.

"You need to tell me where Selina is."

Bruce's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't sound like a question."

"Had I asked, you would have said no."

Bruce slouched down in his seat with a frown. Dick hadn't been able to find him in the manor. According to Alfred, he didn't spend much time there anymore. Instead he was sitting at a terminal, surrounded by massive computer screens that bathed him in a blue glow. On the screen were communications streamed in from The Watchtower, presumably from the Gotham area. He was simultaneously hacking into the computers and cellular devices of the entire city, searching for keywords. They were both after the same person, but for very different reasons. He didn't say anything, but directed his attention toward the screen.

Dick was being ignored. He crossed his arms across his chest, feeling the way his uniform restricted the movement of his shoulders. "She knows how to find this guy. Do you even have a name?"

Bruce sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, but didn't even turn to look at him. "Selina doesn't know anything. Keep her out of it, Dick."

Dick groaned. "Maybe she won't tell _you _because she knows that you would gladly sell Amelia out just to get your hands on what she has."

"You're doing this for her," Bruce said with a chuckle. He pressed his lips together and folded his arms. "Do you really think she doesn't know the importance of that diamond? This guy burned down her house to cover his tracks and didn't find a thing, which means she's hiding it. If she's hiding it that well, she obviously knows how important it is. I thought I taught you better than that."

"Given the hatred she has for our anonymity, if she knew what she had, we'd all be exposed by now."

Bruce leaned forward in his seat, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Let me tell you something—what she has is a component so precisely cut and designed that it cannot be replicated by any craftsman in the universe. Anyone who had a hand in making it has since been murdered. This diamond she has, god only knows _how _she got it, is made for a massive computer so powerful that it could break through any known security system. Lex Luthor has had this computer for years, and the only thing that stands between him and taking down the League of Justice is this silly little girl that you seem to care about more than your real family."

Dick's fists clenched. "I'm aware, but what you seem to have left out is that _you _now have a replica of that same computer thanks to the information _she _gave you. That was what was in those shipments we almost died trying to save, wasn't it? I saw the files before I left, you made sure you got back all of the missing cargo and had it installed somewhere so remote it can only be reached through the zeta tube network. She could die for this, and she doesn't even know why."

"We could _all_ die for this. If Amelia VanAlstyne stays in Arkham, good riddance. I don't care about Amelia VanAlstyne, I care about you. I will not provide you with information that will cause you to put yourself at unnecessary risk."

Dick turned away. There was no way to tell if Bruce was just trying to manipulate him or if he actually meant what he said, and Dick was done being toyed with.

"Barbara told me everything. She's worried, we all are. I'm sure what Amelia says make a lot of sense to you right now, with everything that's happened, but you won't be able to live with yourself if you do what she does."

"Why, because I'm like you? It's because I'm like you that our headquarters was blown up. It's because I'm like you that Kaldur was nearly left in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. It's because I'm like you that Wally's dead."

"No," Bruce spat out, raising his eyes to meet Dick's angry gaze. "It's because you're _better _than me."

Dick looked down at the floor. "No," he muttered under his breath, guiding his hand slowly to his pocket, "I'm not."

In one swift movement he lunged over, pulled out a syringe, and injected the tranquilizer deep into Bruce's flesh. If Bruce wasn't going to tell him, then he was going to have to find out by himself. His mentor slumped over in the chair, asleep.

"Dick?"

Dick glanced up from the computer for only a second. Tim had just come down the elevator shaft. His gaze flickered between Dick at the computer, and his unconscious mentor in the chair.

Tim frowned. "Dick, what are you doing?"

His jaw clenched and he felt the guilt build up in the pit of his stomach, but he didn't stop. He didn't say anything, he just kept working. He didn't have much time. Bruce wouldn't be asleep for long, and he would need to be long gone before that happened.

"Is he at least okay?" Tim's eyebrows knit together and his lips curled in an expression so disgusted Dick had never seen the likes from him before. He rushed over and checked Bruce for a pulse. "Did you even check? What did you give him? What's wrong with you?"

Once Dick had placed the information he needed on his flash drive, he headed back toward the elevator. Before he could get there, Tim blocked his path.

Dick closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Tim, but you're going to have to trust me. He was keeping secret some information that I needed. I wouldn't do anything like this if someone's life didn't depend on it, you know that."

"I don't have to do anything," Tim challenged, which in itself was the boldest thing Dick had ever heard him say before. "Bruce keeps secrets for a reason."

"You don't know him like I do."

Tim clenched his jaw again and glanced back at the elevator shaft. He shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. "I should stop you," he said. He stood there for a moment, but his resolve finally crumbled and he stepped aside.

Dick climbed in and shut the door. "Thank you."

"Don't come back," Tim said to the floor as the elevator rose, just barely loud enough for him to hear. "Not until you're you again."

* * *

><p>Waves. It felt like waves were rolling their way through her body. Amelia braced herself as the brief hyperawareness crashed upon her, bringing with it the nausea. The colors burned her eyes and every sound assaulted her eardrums. She closed her eyes and tried to cover her ears, to try to ride it out, but then all she could hear was the hissing. Voices would hiss behind her, right up against her neck. She would get goosebumps and turn to meet them, but by the time she turned they would vanish.<p>

She needed to open her eyes. She needed to put her hands down, or they would lock her up again. She didn't like to be locked up. She needed to be out of her cell.

They had let her out, as she had been deemed no longer dangerous, as an attempt to socialize her with the rest of the group. A few patients sat around a table playing cards and one sat under a table in the corner, but most sat alone and stared out into space. She would be one of them, except that if she tried to sit she would most certainly fall over and it was a very far drop to the floor. She would probably get hurt. Because it was so far. Because she was so very, very tall.

Everything started to get foggy again and she felt tired. Her limbs were heavy, and again her eyelids fell. She could hear people talking around her, but she wasn't sure what they were saying. She wasn't entirely sure that it was English. She frowned, and her head lulled to the side.

"Girl?"

Amelia pried her eyes open and gazed over to the source of the voice. An older man, with white hair pulled back into a ponytail and a bushy white beard, was looking up at her. His friends, with whom he had been playing poker, all looked at her. He must have been calling for her for a while. She lost her voice.

"Come sit."

In reality it was only a few steps, but it just seemed so far. Tears sprung to her eyes. "I can't move my legs," she explained.

She couldn't gauge his reaction because the room started spinning as the hyperawareness was upon her again. Vomit rose in her throat and she shut her eyes tight. She could hear his voice, soft, piercing, and calm amidst the hissing and scratching. "You can do it. Two steps forward. Just take these two steps. You'll do great."

Her heartbeat quickened and she stumbled, half blind, to her seat. She fell into the arms of the man in the seat beside the empty one, and he helped guide her down. She almost threw up, but the waves had diminished. She felt better now that she was sitting. Not fully, but the effects were considerably less.

"What's your name, girl?"

Name. Name was such a weird word. "VanAlstyne." He smiled, and she took a closer look at him. "I _hate _your hair," she decided before dropping her head down onto the cold tabletop.

He chuckled. "Well, VanAlstyne, I have a question for you. Who is your doctor?" he asked in that quiet, piercing voice of his.

"Bird," she mused. She didn't know why he would ask about things that didn't matter when the tabletop was cold and soft. She could definitely nap here. She shouldn't, but she totally could.

The men all traded glances, and the man frowned. "Girl, you're going to have to sit up and look up at me," he ordered. "Now."

Amelia just couldn't get her head to move, so the nice man beside her who had helped her into her seat pulled her head up for her. Behind them, one of the nurses yelled at him for touching her. She didn't know how he was supposed to help her without touching her. The nurses must be very stupid.

"Does Dr. Crane have you on a blue pill? When they give you your medicine in the morning, do you remember that? Do you remember taking a light blue pill?"

At first Amelia shook her head, but then she remembered briefly swallowing something blue. She frowned. "Blue makes me sad."

"You have to remember this, okay? Can you do that?"

"No."

He smiled, and pulled a playing card out from under his tan sleeves. It was like magic. Where had it come from? She had become so fixated on his magical clothing that she missed what he had said. He just looked at her expectantly.

"What?"

"I said, 'I'm going to teach you a little sleight of hand.' How does that sound?"

* * *

><p>AN: I've been holding onto this for a while and I'm not totally content with it, but I've decided to just let it go. Tim wasn't supposed to be in this, but I included him because apparently I like making myself sad.

Welp. Only a chapter or so more to go before shit hits the fan.


	6. Chapter 5

Amelia struggled to contain the butterflies in the stomach. Today was the day everything would all pay off. She didn't know how long she'd been here—weeks, maybe even months. In the next few hours she'd have the answers she'd been waiting so long for. She would know who wanted to do her harm, and she would be able to eliminate that threat.

"You should eat."

She snapped out of her trance just as Slade was sliding his strawberries onto her plate. "Oh, right." She picked up her fork and pushed the fruit around, but the idea of eating anything turned her stomach.

"Why did you help me?" she asked. The other patients quivered in fear when he walked by. She'd heard his name before, when she worked for Lex, but only in whispers. He was a killer, more ruthless than most. The very act of speaking his name was not enough to make one's voice tremble, he did not have that kind of skill, but what he lacked in skill he also lacked in honor. There was no reason he should have taken interest in her as he thought she was—a boring, pathetic girl.

Slade shrugged and stared intently into his oatmeal.

"I know the only reason you're not in Waller's squad is because a large sum of money exchanged hands to get you transferred here," she whispered. After Amanda Waller lost her job as the warden of Belle Reve, control of the penitentiary was transferred to Dr. Strange, a secret member of the Light. Someone must have tipped the Justice League off about the Doctor's true loyalties, though she suspected there wasn't enough evidence to arrest him—especially now, with the Light disbanded and its members dead or scattered around the globe. Waller had been recruited by some secret federal agency, where she'd begun collecting members of the Light and implanting explosives in their skulls to force their cooperation.

It was curious, then, why they hadn't taken the most famous member. The answer, as always, was money. Amelia suspected that Lex, through someone else, had bribed someone to confirm Slade's insanity and locking him in here, making him ineligible for the squad.

"So," she pressed, "why did you help me?"

For the first time he looked like he was annoyed with her. He let out a low grunt. "I know a good investment when I see one, little girl. That's all."

"Do you think I can help you get out of here?"

The corner of his scarred mouth turned up into a lopsided smirk, and he scratched at his silver hair, which he had cut shortly after they met. "I know you're not in here because you're insane, and that it's a safe bet that any halfway sane person who willingly locks themselves in this shithole is going to have a way out."

"Who are you calling 'halfway sane'? I'm the very picture of mental health."

He raised an eyebrow. "People of perfect mental health don't make friends with crazy people."

"Please, I'm not friends—" Amelia paused as Todd walked by, giving her a weak smile. His long, matted black hair fell into his face, and his glazed blue eyes peaked out from behind his bangs.

Todd had been here longer than anyone. He was another of Dr. Crane's patients. Against Slade's warnings, she taught him how to not take his medication, just as he had done for her. He'd become too addicted to quit entirely, but when he could stand to let go of the pills he would trade them for favors.

In return for her help, Todd was her eyes and ears in the other wing of the Asylum. Amelia had been trading her drugs for information, and she'd been able to find out a lot without being caught. That's where Todd had helped, because everyone was too afraid of him to turn her in.

She'd found out not only the Joker's location, but how to get to him. The nurses were all on a rotation, and the nurse who was responsible for providing the Joker with his medication would also provide Amelia with her own, but only two or three times a year. To the highly medicated, it would seem entirely random. But it wasn't.

As she looked around, she noticed a lot of eyes on her. She frowned. They weren't her friends, they were her pawns. They fed her information, and she fed them drugs. She was the opposite of a friend. Her lip curled into a grimace and she returned her attention to poking her food around her plate.

"You have a talent. You can convince people to behave the way you want them to. That takes practice." Slade put his spoon in his mouth and heaved a long, heavy sigh. "I will not ask what business you have with the clown. All I ask is for your appreciation, for everything that I've done."

Amelia frowned. The strings attached to his words were tangible. He was right, though. If the time came, she owed him.

At the other side of the room, the nurses stood and started to usher people back to their cells. Her stomach panged like she was finally starting to plunge down long slope on a tall roller coaster. The nurses would visit right after lunch. Soon. She leapt out of her seat when the nurse called for her, and across from her Slade

smiled. "Good luck," he mouthed.

Amelia sat cross-legged on her bed as patiently as she could. Her eyes were closed, her breath was calm and even. But she couldn't stop her finger from tapping against her knee. It got faster with every minute that passed until her hand cramped.

Her eyes flew open. What was going on, why were they taking so long? Was something wrong? She had no clock. Maybe she was just being impatient. She needed to be calm.

He came around the corner with his stupid squeaking cart at last, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He had a wiry frame and sandy blonde hair. His shoulders carried no tension. He was relaxed to be in this wing. Amelia was nonviolent, he had no reason to be afraid of her.

"You know the drill," he said as he retrieved her medication from his cart. "Come forward."

He was too comfortable. He'd parked his cart past the white line painted on the ground, too close to the cells. Just within reach. She came forward to retrieve the pills in the little paper cup he passed through the bars. However, instead of grabbing the cup, she snatched his arm.

It only took a second. She pulled the rest of his arm through and applied just enough pressure on the back of his elbow to prevent him from pulling it out and running away. It let out a loud crack, but he only had enough time to let out a quiet, startled cry before she reached through the bars again, grabbing him by his hair and slamming his head against the iron bars of her cage.

She plucked the ring of keys from his cart, unlocked her cell, and dragged his unconscious body in. She tied him up, took his uniform, and gagged him. In the unfortunate situation that someone would walk by, hopefully they would just see someone slumped over in the corner and assume it was the drugs.

She wheeled the cart as quickly as she could without being too suspicious, not that anyone was around to be suspicious except for the drugged inmates in their cells. She could feel their eyes on her. Part of her feared someone would start calling for help, but they just cowered as she passed by.

She paused for a moment as an older woman with wild brown eyes gazed at her in wide eyed horror. What was she so afraid of? Amelia's lips parted to say something, but the words caught in her throat. She wasn't scary. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was just getting information she needed, which was normal.

They were just crazy. She pressed on. The place was much more of a maze than she expected, but she was able to put together the information that the other inmates gave her that led her up to his cell. Left. Right. Up a flight of stairs. Left again. Another right.

He didn't have a nameplate, and his cell was different than hers. She lived behind bars. He lived in a padded, red room with a small slit to let the light in from the outside. She had to stand on her toes to peak in, and she saw him. He didn't look scary. He had a mass of knotted blonde hair in front of his face, and was curled up on his bed staring at the wall opposite him.

His head darted in her direction and he stared at her with his piercing green eyes, a grin creeping up on his scarred mouth. A quick gasp escaped her lips, and she immediately set to discovering which of her keys unlocked his cell door.

She fumbled with the keys in her sweaty, trembling hands, trying one after the other struggling to find the one that fit the lock. With each one that failed, her heartbeat grew faster until she could hear her pulse in her ears. She must have tried ten, fifteen keys before she found the right one. She managed to shut the door behind her just before the alarm started going off that would start the automatic lockdown. Red lights flickered in the hall.

He cackled. "I suppose you want something from me?"

The knot in Amelia's stomach had just started to loosen in relief, but it quickly tightened back up. He didn't blink. How could he not blink? His head lulled to the side as he asked for the answer. How did she not plan what she was going to say? She cleared her throat, and took a tentative step forward. "Um… do you know who I am?"

His face contorted, with furrowed eyebrows and a deep frown. "No, am I supposed to?"

"My name is Amelia… Amelia VanAlstyne."

"Wonderful." He laughed again, but this time he clapped and kicked his feet like a child. His cracked lips curled over his yellow, stained teeth. "That's wonderful. Your… grandfather? father? uncle? is down the hall not too far. Did you pick the wrong cell?"

His eyes were dead, motionless. He knew nothing was funny, but he laughed anyway. To excess. Out of everyone in this place, he belonged here the most. She took a step back and pressed herself against the cushioned door to get as far away from him as she could.

"Harley and Ivy are trying to get you out. Everyone is leaving Gotham, but no one wants to talk. I want to know why."

"And why would I tell you?"

"Because they're going to fail, but I can help. I know a pair of brothers, Germans. They can break anyone out of anywhere. If you help me, I'll help you."

He frowned, and bit at his lip. "I think you need me much more than I need you. I don't know if I'm getting a good deal out of this, if you know what I mean. You want this pretty badly. Me? There's not much I want. You're going to have to do better than a pair of slippery Germans to make me spill the beans."

Amelia didn't want to do it. Her head and heart said not to do it. Nevertheless, her hands moved of their own accord as she grabbed the sick, twisted man opposite her and threw him against the floor. She pulled his arm and twisted it back at a terrible angle, breaking it with one swift move. She shoved his face against the floor and dug her knee into the small of his back.

Instead of crying out in pain, he simply laughed harder. "Well," he said, tears streaming from his eyes. "This is not what I expected."

"Talk, or I break every bone in your body until you do."

"You know, kid," he muttered, lips pressed against the padded floor, "the things you do always come back to bite you in the ass. No good deed goes unpunished, as I like to say."

She bent his thumb until it gave way, breaking with a sickening crack. He barely even flinched. "Tell me what he wants."

He grunted. "He? You assume a lot to think only one person wants you dead, sweetheart. You're just not a very nice girl." His breathing was heavy, and Amelia wondered for a moment if she'd pushed him too hard. Would he lose consciousness?

She applied pressure to the already broken bone, which was enough to finally produce tears from the sick man's eyes. "Ra's al Ghul. The answers you want lie with him."

Amelia's stomach sank. This man didn't know anything, he hadn't even been out in the world in so long. He probably hadn't seen the sun in months. "Ra's al Ghul is dead." She'd made a point to avoid the League of Shadows at all cost, by any means necessary.

"We've really got to work on your communication skills, Amelia. You know, this isn't really the best way to get what you want. You need to work on your aggression. You can't just bottle it all up like that, that's when you start killing people. Trust me, I know."

"Tell me about the League of Shadows. What would they want with me?"

He sighed, like he was annoyed with her. Like she was an idiot or something. It was the most bizarre thing coming from anyone she'd ever interrogated. Ever. "Your problem isn't with the League of Shadows, but with a man. One, single man. An exile."

"The League of Shadows doesn't exile anyone. They kill dissenters."

He laughed. "They kill people who don't see things their way, which I get, I really do. But their failures—the loyal, lapdog suckers—those are the guys who they exile."

"And what does an exile of the League of Shadows want with me?" She'd never done anything to wrong them.

Her heart had finally found a calm rhythm, just as the door burst open and she was torn away from him. It happened in slow motion. She was thrown against the ground and drugged, and he just cowered opposite her in the cell, cackling the entire time and cradling his broken arm.

* * *

><p>Selina frowned. Dick sat down on the couch and looked around the apartment, his lips pursed. She'd been living cautiously, with the window curtains pulled. She hadn't had a lot of opportunities to air the place out, so the dust in the air was visible in the dim lighting.<p>

Bruce hadn't told her what the kid had to do to get the information out of him, but she knew he would never give her up willingly.

He cleared his throat. "Can I get a, um, glass of water?"

"No."

He sighed and looked down at the floor. He didn't even have the balls to ask what he wanted to ask, even though Bruce had prepared her for his questions. Not that she needed the preparation. He just liked to take care of her, so she pretended she needed it.

"Okay, well," he cleared his throat again and paused to choose his words carefully. It was a wise choice. "I know that there is someone very dangerous coming to Gotham, if he isn't here already. I know he wants something that Amelia has. And I think you know who he is, and how to find him."

Selina took a seat on the armchair across from him and looked him straight in the eyes. She needed him to understand, wholeheartedly, what she was telling him.

"Listen well you little shit," she said slowly, in the quiet, low voice she'd learned over many years of practice. She liked to scare men, and when she used that clear, low voice it never failed to make even the most powerful of men piss themselves. "I don't like you. I don't trust you. And I sure as fuck am not going to help you."

The boy didn't break his gaze, but he clenched his fists. "Amelia needs your help. You didn't even tell her what was coming, you just ran. You didn't even try to protect her. Those are some pretty brave words coming from a coward."

A fire lit in the pit of her stomach. "You preach a lot about loyalty, but you're the one who let her lock herself up to find out the information you've been keeping from her."

Selina had failed Amelia before. She'd taken the girl under her wing and had sworn to protect her. She'd manipulated the scared teenager into worming her way deeper and deeper into Luthor's world. She'd been too blinded by excitement over the information Amelia had been able to retrieve, most of which she'd used to help Bruce, that she didn't notice how he'd broken her.

Amelia had never been anything but loyal and dutiful toward her, but she was also a killer. She was inhuman. Lex had taken a scared girl and turned her into a murderous machine so skillfully that Selina hadn't noticed until it was too late.

Selina could not find it in herself to love the girl as she once did, but that didn't mean she would fail her again. And it certainly didn't mean that she would help someone who would so willingly manipulate his friends and dare to call it love.

In truth, Selina already had the jewel. She'd taken it from Amelia years ago. When the ghost decided to appear, he would not be coming after the girl. He would be coming after Selina.

"Amelia is dangerous. If she knew what she possessed, she would expose us all."

"You're so paranoid you don't even trust your friends. It seems that you should be the one behind those asylum walls."

The boy jumped from his seat and towered over her. "I am whatever I was taught to be."

Selina stood, too. "Bruce didn't teach you this. He keeps his secrets because he has to, not so that he can use them as leverage over others. He's more compassionate than you'll ever be. Every month he visits the people he locked up in Arkham to make sure they're being cared for. When's the last time you've even given a second thought to the people you've confined to a cell for the rest of their lives? They're the ones who need help the most. He knows that. You don't."

Dick opened up his mouth to argue, but she interrupted, "You have no idea what it takes to do what he does, to give every ounce of your heart and soul to your city. He trusts his team; you manipulate yours. Even though your friend is dead, you still think this is a game. You're just sulking because you lost."

The boy's face fell as her words sank in. He staggered back, like he was drunk. "I have to go," he muttered under his breath and rushed out the door.

At last, he was gone. She sat back down at the couch and stared at the blank walls. She'd locked herself in this apartment for months, and she'd had very little contact with the outside world outside of Bruce's brief, occasional visits.

She pulled at the chain around her neck and produced the diamond from the inside of her blouse. The stone had been cut at the founding of the Light by hands long dead. Its true purpose had been kept a secret, but word of its size and beauty had spread. It had inevitably been stolen, and when it was rumored to be in Gotham, there had been only one suspect. Jane VanAlstyne had been selling her father's stolen art and jewelry for years on the black market. It was only natural that she would want this, too.

Lex Luthor desperately wanted his claws in Gotham. The city contained the largest shipping port in the northeast, and the rampant crime would provide the opportune cover for anything he wanted to smuggle in. When Falcone refused Luthor's offer of friendship, he'd simply provided another, younger Italian with the means to take the mob by force. Moretti had been instrumental in the case that put Falcone away, and he'd played the legal game very well since coming to power under Lex's guidance. When Selina had convinced Amelia to worm her way into Lex's favor through Moretti, she'd been unknowingly planting seeds of doubt in Lex's mind about his lapdog's loyalty.

Lex had sent Moretti's men to seek out the diamond, but they had been unable to find it. The League of Shadows came to find the diamond. They, too, were unsuccessful. Amelia, though she had just been an ignorant little girl at the time, and caused the most powerful men alive some very serious anguish. And she had done so for no other reason than the love she had for her mother.

Selina slipped the diamond back into her blouse. She had no intentions of dying, but if she did, it would be to protect that little girl, not the thing she'd been turned into.

* * *

><p>Amelia didn't know how long it had been. The hallucinations were terrible, but what was worse were the brief moments of clarity before she was dosed again in which she knew exactly what she had to do. But she couldn't move. She was trapped in a useless body, incapable of doing little more than shifting her gaze.<p>

"Time for your medication, Miss VanAlstyne," a nurse called as he fumbled with the keys to her cell. She couldn't see him, but she recognized his voice. She couldn't have been here so long that they were repeating their rounds, no way. That would have been months. Surely she would have realized it had been so long.

His fingers stroked her hair gently, and he sighed. "I'm so sorry," he murmured. Instead of feeding her pills like she was used to, he shoved a needle into her arm.

It burned like fire, but she couldn't flinch away. She let out a quiet cry as the room started spinning. This was different. The drugs Crane usually gave her were not this strong. This shouldn't be happening. Was someone trying to kill her? Was she dying? She struggled to turn, but she couldn't make her stupid body rotate enough to be able to look her attacker in the face. Soon, she lost consciousness altogether.

The sun woke her up first. It was the light streaming in hitting against the back of her eyelids, which turned her vision red and made the throbbing in her head worse. She groaned, but to her surprise, she could lift a wobbly arm to block the rays from hitting her face.

She smelled leather. When she was finally able to open her eyes, she sat up slowly. Bile rose in her throat and she coughed, but managed to keep herself from throwing up. She was in the back of a car. They were driving fast.

"You're awake!"

Amelia hadn't seen him in so long that she barely recognized him. Charfield had changed a lot. He grew a beard, which he kept trimmed. He was wearing a nice suit, and an expensive-looking watch. He had started getting wrinkles around his eyes. He looked tired and old. He wore a wedding band around his ring finger.

He didn't tell her he'd gotten married. She doubted even his father knew, because if he did he certainly hadn't said anything about it. The last she'd heard anything about him was soon after he'd left to take a high-ranking job at LexCorp.

Why the hell was he here?

She tensed and grabbed at the seat belt behind her, pulling it out slowly in case she need to do some extra persuading to get him to pull over the car. He was smiling, though. Like was happy to see her, relieved. It was unnerving. The last time she'd seen him they hadn't parted on what could ever be misconstrued as good terms.

"What do you want with me?"

His grin vanished. "Listen, I don't expect you to forgive me, but—"

"—What do you want with me?" she repeated, slower this time.

His fingers tightened around the wheel, and he clenched his jaw. "Lex isn't who I thought he was."

Amelia laughed. It was about damn time he realized his hypocrisy. He'd judged her and then ran into the arms of the devil himself. "Oh, really? So what did you do about it? Give him a stern, judgmental talking to and resign?"

He let out a long, exasperated sigh. He ignored her, as he always used to. "He knows about you—who you are, what you do. He hired one of your old colleagues to come kill you tonight."

She frowned. "I don't have colleagues."

"An old guy, his name is Ronald I believe." Charfield's eyebrows knit together in the middle. "Grey hair, kind of buff, ponytail. He has terrible taste."

Ponytail? His name was Ronald? No wonder he became a mercenary, she would want to kill people if her parents named her 'Ronald' too. She couldn't help from laughing.

Ronald McDonald, the mercenary extraordinaire.

"You didn't know his name, did you?" he asked.

She couldn't stop laughing. She must still be high. Her stomach hurt and she couldn't breathe. She wiped a tear from her eye. "No, I just called him Ponytail."

He paused a moment in consideration, the corners of his mouth threatening to worm their way into a smile. "It's appropriate."

She shouldn't be laughing. She was still angry with him. He left. He disappeared without a second thought. He clearly knew that she wasn't the bad guy, yet he hadn't spoken to her in years.

She took a deep breath and got herself together. She couldn't fall back into her old routine. He was not to be trusted. He'd worked for Lex for long enough. He knew things.

"If you don't tell me what you want," she demanded, "I will jump out of this car and you'll never see me again."

"I want you to help me stop Lex," he finally confessed. "I've seen what you can do, and I need your help."

She recoiled and tightened her grip on the seatbelt, her lip curling back over her teeth. "You want to use me."

"No! I want to help you, I want us to do this. Together. Like we used to."

Her heart ached. She was always so quick to trust him, and every time he let her down in the most spectacular ways. He had been so good to her right after Charles, after her grandmother. He would trick her into thinking he was on her side, so wholly and completely that she'd forget all the times he'd tormented her and gone out of his way to remind her that he didn't consider her any more than a spoiled brat. And then he just left. He was unsupportive of any of her recovery efforts and then he left because he was unhappy about, what, a few guns to keep the mob happy? She wanted to laugh. It was pathetic, in hindsight. A few guns were nothing compared to what Lex dealt in.

"You don't even care that they were trying to kill me," she spat. "You don't get to judge me for what I do and then ask for my help."

"No, Amelia," he begged, turning to look at her. "Of course I cared that they were trying to kill you! It's more complicated than that, please, if you would just let me explain—"

"No! I'm tired of you lying to me!" She ground her teeth. "Fuck you! Fuck all of you! You all hate me so much, but the second you're out of your depth, you ask for my help. I'm not some kind of monster you can summon from the pits of hell to do your bidding, I'm a person. If you want my help, you can get your hands dirty."

Her mouth was dry, and she was out of breath. Her chest heaved as she gulped down air, but it wasn't enough. In the beginning she had so many fights like this with James, but she was always at the other end. He'd wanted her to stop working for Lex soon after she'd started working for him, but she'd been too blinded, convincing herself that she was spying on him for the greater good. Whatever that meant. He wanted her to stop working for people that saw her as tools, and had convinced her to start reaching out to people not in their world, like Belle. She had argued, with total sincerity, that everyone she worked for thought of her as a person, and cared for her.

It was all a lie. Selina only cared for her out of the guilt she felt. Bruce, while he appreciated what she did, thought of her as a despicable human being. Dick was the only one who saw the good in her, in what she did. The only one who had accepted for what she was, and thought of her as a person and not a tool to be used and then discarded.

She looped the length of the seatbelt around the headrest of Charfield's seat so that the belt was lying flat across his neck and pulled hard. "Pull over," she ordered.

His hands flew up to his throat and tried to pry the belt away from his neck as he choked, slamming down on the breaks and causing her to fly forward into the front of the car and lose her grip on the belt.

That was when she noticed the passenger slumped down in the front seat, a smirk on his face. His bushy grey eyebrows were raised, and he held a gun pointed over at Charfield in both of his shaking hands.

The blood drained from her face.

"He saw me as I was getting you out," Charfield explained before she had the chance to ask. "I didn't have any other choice."

"Hello, love," Charles said, his smirk widening into a grin. "We'll be heading to the airport now and don't have a second to waste, so be a dear and get back in your damn seat."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** hopefully this wasn't as much of a pain to read as it was to write. I am posting somewhat hastily so I don't hold on to it forever.  
>I love Dick, I really do. He will be happy some day. Just not right now.<p> 


	7. Chapter 6

Charles kept the gun trained at Charfield as he backed toward the hangar where his private plane was waiting for him. His grey hair had grown out longer and hung down to his eyes, and he stood hunched over like a brittle old man. His hands shook violently. They must have drugged him frequently, because his body was clearly having a bad time adjusting. He stared at Amelia warily. "Don't come near me," he warned.

Amelia raised her arms as approached slowly. She too was having her own trouble adjusting to the outside world. The corners of her vision were still hazy, and the colors too bright. The sun was blinding. "Relax," she insisted, squinting against the sun. "If I wanted you dead, you would be."

She doubted his ability to aim properly, even at this range. She was able to dart toward him and simply pluck the gun from his fingers before he was even able to tighten his grip. She knocked him away, and he stumbled back. He nearly fell, and lifted his hands up in surrender.

She had scratched the blood of dozens of men like him out from under her fingernails like dirt. But this wasn't the Charles that had tried to kill her. This wasn't the murderer in front of her. He was just a sick, old, feeble man totally incapable of fighting back. She couldn't kill this man, regardless of how much he deserved to die. He was pathetic. It would be so easy to simply squeeze the trigger, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

What were they going to do with him? They couldn't take him with them. They shouldn't let him go. They couldn't exactly turn him into the cops as she herself was now a fugitive. She frowned and hoped Charfield's ability to avoid the police was adequate. She would not be going back to Arkham again. Not in this lifetime.

"Why did you come to Arkham, Amelia?" Charles asked. "You shouldn't be in Gotham."

On instinct, Amelia raised the gun slowly and stepped back from him. "How do you know? What do you know about this guy, about the League of Shadows?"

The old man's brows furrowed for just the briefest of moments before an eerie smile crept across his face. "I told you everything I know in the letter I sent you, I gave it to that Justice League brat when Arkham was destroyed. Did he not show you?"

What? That was impossible. If he had given Dick a letter of such importance, he definitely would have told her. Her mouth ran dry and she shook her head violently. "You're lying. You always lie."

Charles, too, shook his head. "I'm not, my dear, and I wish you had been given more time to prepare for this. Do you remember that diamond you stole, years ago? The large, oddly cut one?"

Of course she remembered. When Amelia had finally confessed to her mother about what she had done in order to keep her from going to jail, Jane had called her a little monster and dumped her into the lap of _this _beast in front of her. She'd wrapped it up tightly in cloth and paper and shoved it into the back of an old jewelry box with the hopes of never seeing the stupid thing again. Truthfully, she was glad when Selina took it. How did he know about that? She nodded.

"It had been stolen from the Light, and it is very important."

He spoke slowly to her, like he used to when she was little. He would explain why it was important for her to go to bed on time, and to brush her teeth at night. She used to spend a few weeks with them in the summer and he would hardly spend any time with her at all, which was fine because she was terrified of him. However, he had made sure that she was a well-mannered, clean child. And then he had tried to kill her. She couldn't trust him, he had never done anything to earn him her trust. Her lips pursed into a tight line. He was trying to turn her against her friend, her only friend. He just wanted to get her alone so he could manipulate her into letting him go.

There was no way Dick would ever betray her like that. He would never distrust her so deeply. He trusted her. He was the only one who didn't think she was a monster like Charles.

Charles must have noticed that he was losing her. He cast his eyes down toward the ground. "I know you don't want to trust me right now, but you have to. Your life depends on it, both of your lives," he said, glancing over at Charfield. He raised his eyes to meet hers and said earnestly, "I don't want you to die."

The heat pricked against the back of Amelia's eyes, and tears sprung forth and rolled down her cheeks. She shook her head, sending them flying. She had a scar on her leg where he had shot her. She had woken up for months screaming after having nightmares where he was on top of her again, suffocating her and bashing her head against the cold floor. "Then why did you try to kill me?! Why did you kill those girls? Why did you do it?"

"I despise your mother, child. I thought you were like her." He looked down at his hands, shoulders slumped. "I don't expect you understand what it's like to hate your own child. I did what I had to." He took a step toward her, pleading and reaching out. "But I was wrong about you. You are everything I could have wanted. I was so wrong."

She leapt away from his grasp and gripped the gun tighter. "You're disgusting." She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her sleeve. "Now tell me everything you know."

He stopped and nodded, deflating with a long exhale. "The Light has been building a supercomputer powerful enough to break through anything, including Justice League security. That stone is the final piece. Ra's al Ghul sent one of his Shadows out to retrieve it, but he was unsuccessful. Ra's suspected that the Shadow had stolen it for himself. Do you know what happens when a member of the League of Shadows is excommunicated?"

Amelia shook her head.

"When you join the League of Shadows, you take on a new name. A new life. Excommunication as it's normally thought of would simply be an invitation to return to that old life. So, to ensure that those who displease him are adequately punished, he destroys both of their lives and leaves them to wander the desert, totally alone. The man who seeks to kill you had five children, a wife, and a father left. Ra's al Ghul tortured them, then placed their severed heads on spikes to welcome him home after his presumed betrayal."

The gun nearly fell from Amelia's weak grasp. She swallowed. She had heard stories of Ra's al Ghul's wrath, but never like this. She didn't realize he was capable of torturing children. Her stomach churned.

"Through your actions, you caused the horrific deaths of this man's family members. Now, he thought at first I was the one to blame. As you probably have seen in my records, I have a large selection of valuable artifacts of the same sort. He kept a close eye on me, trying to find out where I was keeping the jewel. Though I didn't know it at the time, I hired him to spy on you when you were foolishly investigating the disappearance of that stupid maid."

Amelia remembered coming back from Belle's house, the first day she'd met her family. She'd been in the city. A man had followed her, she couldn't remember his face. He'd been smoking. He may have had a beard? Dark hair? She'd only seen his reflection in a window.

"From what I can gather, he was planning on killing you that afternoon. However, a friend of yours stopped him: Robin."

The man had followed her through traffic, expertly weaving his way in and out of the crowed. Amelia remembered that he'd been chased away by a dark blur, but she'd never bothered to find out what that had been. She'd been too distracted by, what? Pastries? Charfield's cruel words? God, how she wished she could remember his face! The gun was held limp at her side and she closed her eyes, trying desperately to remember. She couldn't.

"His interest grew. Why would you, a nobody, be protected so heavily by the Justice League? This is a man who doesn't understand the concept of friendship or loyalty. He wondered, what made you so special? You must have something very important. Given your relation to me, his assumption that you had the diamond was not unwarranted. He then kidnapped you in an effort to kill your friend. Without the constant watch of the Justice League, he would finally have you in his grasp."

The boy in the red hair, Wally. And Artemis. They had all saved her. She'd always thought it was a trap for her, because she was so helpless. But the goal the whole time was to kill Dick. To get him out of the way.

No, that couldn't be right. "But both of the kidnappers were arrested."

Charles nodded. "They were. The woman was sent to Belle Reve, and the man was sent to Arkham. He would have rotted in there, so drugged he was practically a vegetable, but you let him out when you collapsed the exterior wall. You stole the diamond in order to protect a terrible woman who hates your very existence. In your attempt to ensure the long and healthy life of a boy who so clearly despises you, you've perfectly engineered your own demise."

Amelia frowned. "He doesn't hate me. He's the only friend I've got."

The sly grin snaked its way back across his features. "Then why did he not tell you all of this when it could have been prevented? This man cannot be reasoned with. He will personally see to it that everything you hold dear, your entire way of life, is destroyed. And once he has completed that task, he is going to expose the League of Shadows, the Light, and the Justice League to the general public. He is coming for you, and then he is coming for Ra's al Ghul."

"He can't do that—they'll kill everyone!" she clutched her stomach. If the members of the Justice League were to be exposed, if their true identities were made public, both they and their loved ones would quickly be found dead. She wanted to vomit. Dick couldn't die. He was too kind, he had done so much good. He deserved a better life. His enemies would hunt him down, despite the fact that he had left the League months ago.

Her heart ached. She felt like she was missing a limb, like there should be something beating in her chest that had suddenly vanished. Dick couldn't die… but neither could she, right? What about Belle? Charfield? James? She swallowed. It wouldn't come to that. She would never let herself get backed into a corner enough that she would be forced to choose.

"That's the idea, love." Charles backed up toward the hanger. "Come with me," he begged. "I can protect you. You don't have to stay here and burn with them. You can even bring Charfield if you like. We must leave now."

* * *

><p>Dick arrived in such a hurry that he let his bike fall to the ground, which would undoubtedly give it a long, white scratch along the side. But he didn't care. Not too far off, Amelia had a gun expertly trained on her grandfather, slowly walking him back toward a hanger. Charles had probably conned them into taking him to one of his many private jets in an attempt to escape.<p>

Disappearing would probably be the best thing for all of them, if he was being totally honest. Amelia escaping from Arkham had triggered a massive police search that was going to be hell to cover up, even for the Justice League. For now, Bruce was in the process of convincing them that she had been involved in an investigation or something. He hadn't really ironed out all the details yet when Dick had seen him last. They weren't really talking, which was unsurprising considering that Dick had assaulted him and stolen information from him the last time they had seen each other.

Dick had been alone in his apartment, watching television when Bruce had burst in through the door. He hadn't even knocked, and it was odd considering the fact that Dick had no less than four locks on his door. He hadn't even heard the detective picking them. He had either been too distracted by his own thoughts, or Bruce had truly been that silent.

"Back up," Amelia ordered Charles, and held her hand up to warn Dick not to come any closer. Her voice was low, and loud. Authoritative. He didn't even recognize it; she had always been quiet. Meek. Afraid. When Charles tripped as he was crossing the threshold, she barked again, "Keep going. Back the fuck up."

"Amelia," he warned, though not daring to take a step closer. "Don't do this."

"Get out of here, Grayson." Charles crossed the threshold of the hangar, but Amelia lingered behind, her free hand resting on the polished metal sliding door. The light shone in her eyes, and she turned to squint in his direction. Her dark hair had gotten longer. It hung straight except for the ends, which had tangled into a wild mess of knots. She was a sickly grey color, with dark rings around her sunken eyes. Bandages and scars ran up and down her arms.

Bile rose in his throat. What had happened? What had he allowed to happen? He remembered how he had been partially relieved when she had been admitted to Arkham—it had given him more time to figure out as much as possible about the Ghost and his whereabouts and find the diamond. Unfortunately, he had been unsuccessful in all of these endeavors. She'd been locked up for nothing, and it clearly hadn't been an uneventful stay. She hardly looked human.

She gripped the handle of the door tight in her grasp. "You don't want to see this," she muttered, shutting the door with a quick jerk.

Dick ran up to the door, heart pounding, but it was too late. There was a deafening bang just as he had managed to lay his hand on the door. He froze, but his arm was pushed away when Amelia slid past him and shut the door behind her, the gun hanging limp by her waist. "Don't go in there," she whispered. She grabbed his hand and pulled him away, staring up at him. "Are you alright? What's going on? You look like shit."

"Me?" he laughed. "You're one to talk. I've arrested meth addicts with a livelier complexion."

Her lips pulled down into an exaggerated frown, and she reached, pulling out one of his hairs with a sharp, painful tug. "Grey hair," she explained, wiping it off on her pants.

Was she being serious? Dick's stomach sank and he found himself unconsciously running his fingers down the length of his hair. He wasn't going grey already. She was just joking. There was no way.

"Seriously," she asked with a weak smile, pulling him over toward the car, "what's going on? They obviously know I'm out."

Dick nodded. "Bruce is on that. He's taking care of it. We'll just have to get you to a League safe house in the meantime." He glanced over at Charfield, who was sitting down with his face in his hands not too far off. "How much does he know?"

"Everything Lex Luthor knows; he works for him. Lex sent someone in to Arkham to kill me, Carfield saved me. Were you able to find Selina? Is she alive?"

He hesitated just a moment—should he tell her? He frowned. He had lied enough, and none of it had done him any good. "Yes."

"Good." She nodded. She didn't even hesitate or seem surprised that Selina was alive. He had told her repeatedly that Selina was dead and tried so hard to make her lose all hope, but she never had. It was like she had known all along. She wasn't even fazed. "I can't go to the safe house."

"What? Of course you're going!" She looked like hell, emaciated. Her skin stretched over her cheekbones like fabric over wire. She was too delicate. She was going to sit down and stay put until he had everything resolved, no questions asked.

She shook her head. "This guy, the one everyone keeps talking about, he was a member of the League of Shadows. He wants this diamond, it's a computer part, so he can expose everyone: the Justice League, the League of Shadows, the Light. But I don't have it anymore, Selina took it."

Blood roared in his ears. Of course Selina had taken it. Everything made sense. Selina had run as soon as Bruce found out, not because she was running like all the other criminals, but to protect Amelia. He couldn't believe that Bruce of all people had been involved in such a thing, since it was well known that he and Amelia didn't particularly care for one another. Selina must have insisted.

He had thought she was a coward. He'd criticized her, but he'd had no right. No wonder she'd been so harsh.

Still, he frowned. He needed to get her safe. This was all his fault—if he hadn't lied, they would have been able to figure everything out together. Selina had the diamond, so there was no risk of Amelia exposing them. She couldn't use it for herself.

He was so stupid. This was last year all over again. He had promised himself that he wouldn't lie like that again, keep secrets. But he had! How did he not even realize it? His eyes slid out of focus, staring somewhere over her shoulder.

It was too late. All he knew how to do was lie. What was so wrong with him that he couldn't just open his mouth and speak to other people? To trust them? Why was it so hard? His hand wandered into his pocket and he spun the bottle of pills in his fingers, his heart fluttering wildly in his chest.

His stupid secrets had already helped get one friend killed. His face was hot, his eyes stung. What was he doing? Amelia was his friend. He had talked to her endlessly about the books she read, the movies she watched. She had come over countless times to just watch him play video games and talk. She thought he was great! She saw him as a hero.

She might die because he couldn't trust her. She'd killed people, sure, but that didn't make her all bad. Right? She might not agree entirely with the Justice League, but that was justifiable! She did what she had to in order to stay alive. He couldn't believe he'd let Bruce's black-and-white thinking cloud his judgment so entirely. Amelia was good. He was safe with her. She could be trusted. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He would fix this. "You're coming with me to the safe house. I'll take care of Selina."

Her nose wrinkled. "Of course I'm not, I'm going to go help Selina. Wouldn't you do the same for Bruce? I have to do this."

He put his hand on her shoulder, and gripped it tightly. "You're coming with me to the safe house," he repeated. She had dark bags under her eyes; she was probably exhausted. She should be in bed, not running around the city looking for people who wanted to kill her.

"No, I'm not!" She shoved him back. "I can help in ways that you won't. I am more effective. I don't trust you to do what's necessary."

In one swift move, he shoved her against the car door and pushed his forearm down tight across her chest, dangerously close to her throat. "I already told you that I'm not losing anyone else. I won't." He cleared his throat as his voice cracked. He caught his breath. "I'll do whatever it takes. You have my word."

He couldn't tell her how he'd kept from her vital information. He would, eventually, just not now. He could hardly admit it to himself.

Her eyes darted back and forth between his face and his arm. Eventually, her jaw clenched. "Fine," she muttered through her teeth.

There was a loud thud and they both turned toward the trunk, where Charfield stood with his arms up in an exaggerated shrug. His eyebrows where halfway up his forehead and his lips were pursed into a thin line. "Yeah, I'm still here. You're bike's in the back. Let me guess, you want to drive?"

Dick's arm dropped from Amelia's chest immediately and he jumped back. "Uh," he cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"Fine," he sighed and tossed the keys in Dick's direction. "Just don't scratch her, she's a rental."

Amelia's lip curled. "Ew, you anthropomorphize cars now?" She opened the door to the back seat and was about to get in when she gave him a stern up-and-down. "I knew I didn't like you for a reason."

* * *

><p>Dick approached the computer terminal cautiously, quietly. The room was dark, except for the dim lighting from the monitor.<p>

Babs typed at lightning speed, her red hair falling in wild curls around her face. She chewed on her lip, and he could barely make out the reflection of the computer screen in her glasses.

"Grayson," she said in a low voice, not even looking up from the computer screen. From her tone he could figure two things: 1) he was not as stealthy as he thought he was, and 2) she had still obviously not forgiven him for taking Amelia's side. She was naïve, idealistic. Her morals were too rigid, like Bruce's. She didn't know how to bend, so she would undoubtedly break.

He froze, crossing his arms across his chest. He couldn't bring himself to speak, so he just stared at her. His jaw locked shut. What was he supposed to do? Give a half hearted apology, manipulate her into doing what he asked? She'd see through that in a heartbeat.

She eventually let out a small sigh in frustration, one he wasn't sure if he was supposed to hear or not. "You need my help locating your person of interest."

She always had been better at computers than he was, which he would never admit. Ever. He swallowed.

She finally looked up at him, and her eyes softened. She looked so sad, disappointed. "Dick, you look exhausted. When is the last time you slept?"

He was always tired. He couldn't sleep through the night. He hadn't slept soundly in years. He looked over her shoulder and fixed his posture. "I need to find him."

"Well I can't help you. The only location we've ever known him to be is outside that fashion designer's store, and this is the only visual we have." She spun one of the monitor's around to reveal a photo from a traffic camera. He was of average height and build, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. He was wearing a black baseball cap that shadowed his face to unrecognizable proportions. "I can't do a facial recognition search with this sort of resolution. I have nothing to give you."

He felt her gaze burn a hole through him. "Is that all you came here for?" she asked. "We don't hear from you for months and then you come down here, attack Bruce. And now you have the nerve to ask for our help? I've left you so many messages. This isn't you."

"Are you done?" Dick reeled back. He had hardly 'attacked' Bruce without good reason, and the majority of her messages were full of the same poorly masked condescension that filled her tone now. She had no idea about how the real world worked. She had no idea. His hands balled into fists.

"You just need… help. And it's obvious you don't want mine." She heaved a heavy sigh and dropped her gaze, pinching the bridge of her nose between her trembling fingers. "You can't come to me like this, it's not fair."

Her voice broke before she shot up and sent the chair flying. She stared at him full of rage, eyes glossy. She glanced down and grabbed the closest thing she could find—a cup full of pencils—and threw it at him as hard as she could. He was barely able to dodge it before a stapler came and hit him in the stomach.

"Richard Grayson – you can be – the most selfish – _asshole _sometimes!" she punctuated her words by pelting him with office supplies. She threw everything in her reach short of the computer monitor, which he was sure she considered. When there was nothing left to throw she froze, searching. She breathed heavily, eyes scanning the desk wildly, giving him a brief moment to rub the bruises that he would get the next morning.

When she finally realized there was nothing left to throw she looked up to meet his gaze, and he wasn't sure whether she was about to scream at him some more or cry. She made him so angry sometimes, but something in his gut ached at the sight of her pain.

He couldn't be here anymore. The walls closed in on him and his heart raced. He turned without a word and made his way to the lift up.

"Get out! Go on, run away. Get out of here!" Babs screamed after him. "I hate you!"

Dick's hands shook as he got back into his car. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. He closed his eyes and took a few slow breaths to slow his heartbeat.

It didn't work. His hands still shook. His heart still beat a furious rhythm in his chest. He couldn't breathe. He pulled out the bottle of pills Dr. Carter had given him and took two.

He had nothing to go off of. He had caused so much trouble and had no way of fixing it. His eyes grew hot with tears, but he wouldn't let them fall. He beat at the steering wheel, pounding it with his fists until the car shook and his hands were covered with dark bruises.

His phone rang. It was dark outside, who would be calling him now?

"Hello?"

"This is Felix."

"Who?"

The older gentleman on the other end sighed. "I work for the VanAlstynes. Amelia ran after my idiot son fell asleep. He told me to call you. She's headed for New York—I'm tracking her on GPS now."

New York? That was where Selina was. How did she know Selina's address? How was he able to track her in the first place? "Wait, do you have a GPS tag on Amelia?"

There was a pause. "Of course."

Impressive. "Does she know?"

Another pause. "Obviously not."

"I know where she's going. I'll meet you there." Dick hung up, and when he did, he noticed that the Maps application on his phone was open. Dick always closed applications when he was done with them to conserve battery life. He would never leave it open like that.

Amelia must have fished his phone out of his pocket when he was driving and searched through his recent addresses. He hadn't even noticed! He groaned and turned the lights on in the squad car.

It didn't take him long to arrive, driving at top speed. He had just enough time to find a sense of calm. Everything would work out. He and Amelia would put their heads together and make a plan.

The front door of Selina's building was ajar. That wasn't good. The car came to an abrupt halt and Dick ran out, removing his gun from its holster as he crept up the wooden stairs.

Inside was totally silent. As he rounded the corner, the first thing he saw was Selina, doubled over on the ground. Her eye looked pink and puffy, like she was starting with a black eye. Her lip was split, and blood ran down her chin. Charfield stood a few feet away with his hands up in surrender, his hair sticking up at odd angles and a gun at his feet.

In the kitchen to his right Amelia stood frozen, Felix not too far off behind her in the hall. The skin on her cheek was split, and blood spilled from her nose. The microwave behind her blinked with a time that was an hour off—Selina obviously hadn't gotten around to fixing it yet, even though daylight savings was weeks ago.

Time froze. Dust hung suspended in air, and the only sound was of heavy breathing and the traffic outside

Amelia lifted her arm, and he noticed that her knuckles were bruised. What had happened? Was she the one responsible for Selina's injuries?

She swallowed. "This is what you want, isn't it?" she asked. She allowed her fist to unclench and a bit of chain slid through her grasp, a large diamond at its end.

That could only mean one thing—NO. He couldn't be here, not already! Where was he? Dick burst through the doorway and fully entered the house—there he was! Standing in the shadow, at the corner of the kitchen, was the man who had been the center of his nightmares for months. And Dick could barely make out his face! How was it that he could find the one patch of shadow in a fully lit kitchen?!

Dick almost didn't notice that he had a gun aimed square at Amelia's forehead. She took a step forward, closer to him, and let the jewel slip from her grasp ever so slightly. "Take it, then. It's yours."

What was she doing? This was not part of the plan. She couldn't just give it to him!

Dick had never felt more totally, utterly useless in his entire life. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't stop her, he couldn't stop this from happening. Every ounce of calm he had managed to gather in the past hour vanished. "No!" he screamed.

Then everything went dark. Bruce must be here, he had to be. There was a scuffle, a deafening shot, and breaking glass.

On instinct, Dick dropped to the ground. He put his hand on the linoleum floor to right himself, but instead found himself placing his palm into a large puddle of warm, thick blood.

* * *

><p>AN: Shoutout to all the awesome people reading this. Thanks for putting up with my shit. It's been way too long. But on the plus side, the final chapters coming up are going to be really fun to write which means I will (hopefully) updating more frequently.


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